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Speaker 1: Afternoon. Kiwi Rail has announced the Artiteta inter Island a

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Speaker 1: faery will be retired this year. Now that leaves us

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Speaker 1: with just two inter Islander fairies to operate until the

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Speaker 1: new fairies arrive in twenty twenty nine. Adele Wilson is

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Speaker 1: Kiwirail's Chief Customer and Growth Officer and with us, hey

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Speaker 1: it l.

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Speaker 2: Hi Heather, good afternoon, Why are you retiring it? What

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Speaker 2: we're announcing today is the news that the Raitarisok Wharf

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Speaker 2: and Picton is going to need to be deconstructed sometime

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Speaker 2: between October. Earliest time October this year and probably the

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Speaker 2: latest time is March twenty twenty six. And that Auditary

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Speaker 2: requires specialist loading equipment, so when her warf goes, that

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Speaker 2: means there's no way for the arditelly to operate. And

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Speaker 2: that's why today we're giving the market the news that

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Speaker 2: the Auditory will be retired some time this year.

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Speaker 1: So will you run her until the very last I

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Speaker 1: mean if you have to start, if you only start

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Speaker 1: the work March next year, will you run her till then?

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Speaker 2: Look, we're working. That's why we've come out with the

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Speaker 2: news today because we need to be well advanced with

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Speaker 2: our planning for a two ship scenario. That's been clear

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Speaker 2: that we would need to manage that, you know, for

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Speaker 2: some time. But we are working on those final operational details,

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Speaker 2: including the final date of the attorney's retirement, and that

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Speaker 2: you know requires us to look at maintenance requirements and

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Speaker 2: the maintenance regime preshship and what work needs to be

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Speaker 2: done and which ship we need on the water.

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Speaker 1: Through to that time, it was possible, wasn't it to

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Speaker 1: actually kind of build in a little bit of infrastructure

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Speaker 1: to be able to keep running her. That would have

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Speaker 1: cost about one twenty million, right.

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Speaker 2: That's right here. Yes, there was. In the former project,

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Speaker 2: there was a plan to build a temporary wharf at

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Speaker 2: a very large cost of one hundred and twenty million dollars.

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Speaker 2: But look, you know, it's been well signaled that this

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Speaker 2: new project needs to be done for a more appropriate price,

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Speaker 2: and you know, the idea of the temporary wharf is

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Speaker 2: one of those things that is not possible if we

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Speaker 2: want to bring this project in on budget and on

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Speaker 2: time and at a level that's affordable for New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: What's going to be the impact on the number of

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Speaker 1: sailings and the number of passengers that you can get

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Speaker 1: across the cook Straight.

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Speaker 2: Sure. So the Artaria at the moment is capable of

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Speaker 2: carrying six hundred and fifty passengers and the other tary

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Speaker 2: has does four sailings each way per day, so that's

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Speaker 2: two from Wellington and too from Pacton. So look, we

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Speaker 2: there is no doubt that capacity across the Cook Straight

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Speaker 2: for the transition period until we get our new ship

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Speaker 2: is going to be tighter and we're very confident that

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Speaker 2: we can manage the task.

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Speaker 1: Are you going to prioritize goods because if this is

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Speaker 1: the fairy that's basically been used to transport goods across

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Speaker 1: the cook Strake, you're going to have to check it

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Speaker 1: on the other fairies. Does that come before passengers?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a balance, Heather, And we've got to think

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Speaker 2: about New Zealand and as a whole. We have to

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Speaker 2: manage the freight task, but we also have to look

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Speaker 2: after our families and our international passengers that use the

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Speaker 2: cook Straight for recreation, but.

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Speaker 1: Also do you prioritize the freight or the passengers.

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Speaker 2: We look at the different sailings and the allocations and

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Speaker 2: how we allocate those are different across the air and

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Speaker 2: at different peak times. So for example, at Christmas time,

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Speaker 2: generally the freight task is lower, so at that point

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Speaker 2: in time, we will be looking to allocate more space

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Speaker 2: to passengers because that's the peak passenger time and that's

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Speaker 2: how we'll manage it. So it's not an easy task.

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Speaker 2: We do it literally day by day. Now, we look

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Speaker 2: at historical patterns and we make our allocation decisions based

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Speaker 2: on that. But I will say, and it's important to

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Speaker 2: be clear about this, that there's no doubt through this

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Speaker 2: transition period on our peak days there is less capacity.

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Speaker 2: So people may have been used to being able to

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Speaker 2: travel in their favorite time slot and a lot of

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Speaker 2: people like to go at eight o'clock in the morning.

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Speaker 2: Not everybody that has been able to travel them will

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Speaker 2: still be able to travel them, So people may have

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Speaker 2: to travel in other time gates, and people may have

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Speaker 2: to travel slightly earlier outside of those really peak holiday

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Speaker 2: travel days. So I want to be clear about that

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Speaker 2: and rare about that, and you know we would recommend

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Speaker 2: to book early.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Adelle, thanks very much, appreciate it. Adele Wilson,

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Speaker 1: chief Customer and Growth Officer at KEE We Rail.

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Speaker 2: For more from hither Duplessyell and Drive.

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