Q3
-39.6% or 2.9 million passengers
-22.3% or 1.6 million vehicles
Year-to-date
-42.1% or 10.6 million passengers
-26.9% or 5.3 million vehicles
The effects of COVID-19 have negatively impacted BC Ferries’ traffic and revenues over the current year. This trend is expected to continue in the near term as the province recovers from the effects of the pandemic.
In December 2020, BC Ferries received $308 million from the Safe Restart Program, a federal-provincial initiative.
BC Ferries applied nine months’ worth of Safe Restart funding, or $154.8 million, to Q3 revenues. Without this relief, the net loss for the three months ended December 31, 2020 would have been $56.4 million.
As a result of the funding, BC Ferries recorded net earnings of $98.4 million for the three months ended December 31, 2020, compared to a net loss of $8.3 million in the same quarter in the prior year.
On a year-to-date basis, BC Ferries’ net earnings were $74.3 million to December 31, 2020. Without federal-provincial Safe Restart funding, the company would have had a net loss of $80.5 million, compared to net earnings of $98.9 million in the same period in the prior year.
