The state ferry system has hired more crew members than have left the agency over the past four months, Marine Director Craig Tornga told a public advisory board on Friday, Dec. 1, a rarity for the system which has been plagued by a net outflow of workers.
If the hiring gain continues, the Alaska Marine Highway System may be able to run both of its largest ships, the Columbia and Kennicott, next summer, which could allow for restoration of cross-Gulf routes and maybe even bringing back service to Prince Rupert, British Columbia.
The ferry system’s proposed summer schedule is expected for public release and comment sometime this week.
Though the draft schedule will not include running the fleet’s entire complement of seven ferries, “it looks pretty good” that higher staffing levels will allow bringing on all the vessels and amending the schedule, Tornga told the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board.
Since the board meeting in August, Tornga said, the state hired 42 crew members this fall and lost 19, reversing a trend of losing more workers than hired over the past few years.
It grew its number of stewards by 19 overall, hiring 35 and losing 16, Tornga said.
“We’re always looking into why we lose so many stewards,” he told the board. “A big part of it is just affordable housing. They come on, we house them for a term on the Matanuska,” which is tied up in Ketchikan until the state decides if it is worth it to repair the ship. “And they can never find (permanent) housing and they end up moving on.”
The Alaska Marine Highway System also is seeing success in an agreement with the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots to allow retired crew members to help fill crew shortages. So far, seven retirees have taken advantage of the agreement.
“They can only work a certain amount of time with their retirement,” Tornga explained. “The beauty of getting these retirees back is most of them have all their pilotage, and that’s an area we’re weak at right now.”
The state is planning to enter a similar agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, he added. Some retired IBEW crew members already have volunteered to help out once the agreement is ratified.
Though the crewing figures are good, Tornga conceded, “we’ve got a ways to go.” Crew levels still aren’t where they would need to be to operate the full fleet, he said.
The ferry system from 2019 through early 2022 lost 155 more employees than it hired, management told legislators in 2022.
Also at the Dec. 1 meeting, Tornga told the board that whether the 60-year-old Matanuska will ever return to service will depend on the condition of its hull. The ship has been out of service for about a year, awaiting a decision on whether to spend millions of dollars on steel repairs.
The ferry system has started to scan the Matanuska to determine the extent and depth of wasted steel across the vessel using ultrasound thickness gauging, Tornga said. It already has scanned the car deck, the bow thruster room and other areas on the ship, but further scans of the ship’s interior will have to wait until it can go into drydock in order to remove lead ballast weights that would interfere with the scan.
The Matanuska will be the next in line for drydock at the Ketchikan shipyard after the Columbia, which is scheduled to go into drydock next week, Tornga confirmed. This year’s winter sailing schedule shows the Columbia would be laid up for about a month and a half.
Even with scans of just a few areas of the Matanuska, “our initial reports have not been favorable. The car deck has quite a few bad areas,” Tornga said. “The bow thruster room does as well — a lot of thin steel areas that would be a lot of replacement. … We’ll still get all the tanks so we have all the information to make a good decision with that, but it initially doesn’t look good.”
The Juneau Empire contributed reporting for this story.
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