Thousands of Aucklanders who catch a ferry to work will keep doing so under a new operator, after Auckland Transport signed a seven year contract to run some of the city’s busiest harbour routes and bring in five brand new vessels.
The deal covers what Auckland Transport calls the Western Package, a group of routes that carry commuters between the downtown ferry terminal and Bayswater, Birkenhead and Te Onewa Northcote Point, and West Harbour, along with the service to Rakino Island in the Hauraki Gulf. Auckland Transport announced the contract on 2 July, ending a long procurement process for one of the harbour’s most heavily used networks.
The winning bid came from a combined proposal by Belaire Ferries and the Kelsian Group, whose marine arm runs SeaLink services in Australia. The two companies will run the routes together from 1 July 2027 for an initial seven year term, with an option to extend for a further two years.
Auckland Transport chief executive Stacey van der Putten said the agency was pleased with the result. “We are very happy with the overall proposal from Belaire Ferries and Kelsian Group and feel this is a great result for the many Aucklanders who commute from those areas by ferry every day,” she said.
For passengers, the most visible change will be the boats themselves. The operators have committed to building five new standardised 24 metre ferries, described as a modern Metro Class design, which will be delivered progressively from 2028. Auckland Transport says the standard design will improve reliability and cut the cost and complexity of maintaining a mixed fleet, a problem that has dogged the ageing Auckland ferry service and led to cancelled sailings in recent years.
The new vessels will not be fully electric from day one. Ms van der Putten said they would “utilise low-emission diesel engines with modular electric or hybrid retrofit capability, enabling a transition to lower or zero-emission operations”. In plain terms, the ferries are being built so they can be converted to electric or hybrid power later, once the charging infrastructure and funding are in place, rather than being locked into diesel for their whole working lives.
Councillor Andy Baker, who chairs the council’s Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee, framed the deal as a long term investment in a city shaped by its coastline. “This contract secures the future of ferry travel for thousands of Aucklanders. We are a city built around harbours,” he said.
Under the agreement, ownership of the five new ferries will transfer to Auckland Transport when the contract ends in 2034. That arrangement keeps the public assets in public hands at the end of the term, so a future operator can take them over rather than the fleet leaving with the company that built it.
In the meantime, services will start on existing boats. The operators will begin the contract with a fleet of six vessels, four already owned by Belaire Ferries and two Kelsian ferries relocated from Australia, before the new Metro Class boats arrive one by one between 2028 and the early 2030s.
The routes in this deal are only part of a bigger picture. Auckland runs one of the largest ferry networks in the country, fanning out from the downtown terminal to the North Shore, West Auckland and the islands of the Hauraki Gulf, and the council has been putting its services out to tender in separate packages as each contract comes up for renewal. Locking in the western routes for seven years, with new boats attached, settles one of the larger pieces of that puzzle and gives the operators a long enough runway to justify building new vessels rather than nursing old ones along.
The contract also marks the entry of a large Australian operator into the Auckland market. Kelsian Group, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, has agreed to buy Belaire Ferries outright as part of the move, according to filings reported in the maritime industry press. The Auckland routes are expected to generate around 101 million dollars in revenue over the initial seven year term.
Ferries carry a small but steady share of Auckland’s commuters, and the western and North Shore services covered by this contract are among the busiest on the harbour. The council has been renewing its transport contracts in stages as older agreements expire, part of a wider push to modernise a network that many residents rely on to avoid the city’s congested motorways and harbour bridge.
Graeme Legh, chief executive of the Kelsian Group, said the company was pleased to be chosen. “We are delighted to have been selected by Auckland Transport, in partnership with Belaire Ferries, to operate Auckland’s Western Package ferry services,” he said.
For now, commuters on the Bayswater, Birkenhead, Northcote Point, West Harbour and Rakino Island runs will not notice much difference. The current timetables continue, and the change of operator does not take effect until the middle of next year. The bigger shift, quieter and cleaner boats built for eventual electric power, will arrive gradually over the years that follow.
Are you a regular on one of Auckland’s ferry routes, and what would make the service better for you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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