The Alaska Marine Highway System allowed only one week for public comment on its proposed ferry schedule for the upcoming fall and winter, but the draft is pretty much a non-issue for Wrangell: The level of service would be the same as it’s been the past couple of years.
The schedule for October through April shows one ferry a week northbound and one a week southbound, the same as this summer, last winter and the summer before that.
The stops would be southbound on Mondays and northbound on Fridays.
The state released the draft schedule on June 18, with comments due by Tuesday, June 25. A virtual public meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 26, with ferry system management to adopt a final schedule as soon as practicable after comments close so that travelers can start making reservations.
The Kennicott, which is sailing weekly this summer between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska, would stay on the run under the draft schedule through October, when the Columbia would come out of the shipyard to take over the job through April.
The Columbia has been in the shop since last November, with excessive rust in the ship’s fire suppression system delaying its return to service.
The ferry system’s other mainline vessel, the Matanuska, continues to sit idle in Ketchikan, waiting for the state to decide the fate of the ship, which suffers from extensive rust in its steel plating.
The Matanuska is 61 years old; the Columbia is 51 years old.
The marine highway system anticipates that the Kennicott will be out of service for most of 2025 for a 10-month project to replace its generators to meet federal emissions standards. Losing the Kennicott for close to a full year will put Southeast at risk of service disruptions if the Columbia experiences any mechanical breakdowns during that time.
While the Southeast mainline route would get its standard weekly service under the draft schedule, there are the usual winter gaps in service elsewhere in the state.
Kake will get one ferry a month.
Prince William Sound communities of Cordova, Valdez and Whittier will go without any service from Oct. 15 to Dec. 15 while the Aurora goes in for annual maintenance.
The coastal communities of Kodiak and Homer and Seldovia will be without service January through March when the Tustumena is pulled from the run for annual overhaul work.
“The schedule patterns proposed are based on the funding levels for (fiscal year 2025),” according to the letter by Marine Director Craig Tornga that accompanied the draft winter schedule.
The schedule proposes a total of 131 “operating weeks of service” for the fleet, down from 139 weeks planned for last’s winter schedule. Each ship at work for a week counts as an “operating week.”
The full draft winter schedule and related information are available on the ferry system website at https://dot.alaska.gov/amhs.
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