Interislander apologises after ferry breakdown leaves hundreds stranded

Thursday, 12 March 2026

Interislander has apologised for an Interislander ferry suffering a technical fault and leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on either side of Cook Strait during its busy season.

Interislander operations general manager Taru Sawhney said the Kaiārahi, which first broke down in Wellington on Saturday, was currently out of service after an intermittent technical fault recurred on Tuesday evening when it returned to Picton.

Sawhney said a replacement component has been sourced from overseas and would be in New Zealand on Friday.

Subject to installation, testing, sea trials and regulatory approvals, Interislander was planning for Kaiārahi to return to service by the end of the week, she said.

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“We first off want to apologise for the disruption and we are working closely with suppliers and regulators to return Kaiārahi to service safely and as quickly as possible.

“We appreciate this outage is disappointing, particularly given Interislander has delivered close to 100% reliability in the past year and operates under a rigorous maintenance and inspection regime.

“Despite our best endeavours, at times intermittent faults in complex electrical systems do not show up in pre-emptive maintenance and test routines.”

Sawhney said operating with one ferry was challenging, particularly during a busy period, but it was something Interislander had managed through before.

“To assist we are putting on eight additional Kaitaki sailings on Sunday and Monday, when the vessel was due for a scheduled layby,” she said.

“All foot passengers impacted by the Kaiārahi cancellation have been accommodated on Kaitaki sailings, mostly on the same day.”

Interislander carried about 5000 private vehicles a week at this time of year.

Sawhney said about 1300 private vehicles were affected by the Kaiārahi outage and all of the affected customers had been offered a full refund, the opportunity to rebook at no additional cost and compensation for reasonable costs incurred as a direct result of the outage.

“We acknowledge that the dates we are able to offer for rebooking at the present time are some way out and will not suit all of our customers,” she said.

“While Kaiārahi is out of service, Interislander is prioritising urgent freight that cannot travel across the Cook Strait on any other mode. We have offered passengers booked on Kaitaki an incentive to rebook at a later date, to create more space for that freight. Some passengers have taken this offer up.

“We are actively monitoring capacity and working with all of our customers to move as many passengers and as much freight as we can as quickly as possible.”