23rd March 2020 By Staff Reporter | news@tourismticker.com | @tourismticker
KiwiRail is suspending its three tourist services to help combat the spread of Covid-19.
TranzAlpine, Northern Explorer and Coastal Pacific services for Tuesday 24 March have been cancelled and would remain suspended until further notice.
Group chief executive Greg Miller said the decision was in line with the Government policy of limiting non-essential travel around New Zealand.
“Given the current circumstances, this is the appropriate thing to do in order to protect our people, passengers and communities from risk. We are deeply conscious of the impact that the cancellations will have on communities that rely on the business the trains generate,” he said.
“However, the safety of our customers, staff and communities must be our top priority.”
Full refunds would be available for impacted customers.
“We will support our people through this change. We will look to temporarily redeploy staff where possible and will resume our services as soon as it is practical to do so,” Miller said.
The Capital Connection service would continue to operate because of the role it played in public transport.
Miller said KiwiRail was committed to ensuring the Interislander remained operational, as it was a crucial transport link between the North and South islands
Passenger limit numbers had already been reduced on each sailing to allow for physical distancing.
From today, 23 March, the Aratere would become a freight-only service until the end of June 2020.
“As part of our response to Covid-19, we are making changes to our Interislander services to reduce risk for our people and passengers, and help ensure that a robust supply chain is maintained,” Miller said.
“Affected passengers have been transferred to either the Kaiarahi or Kaitaki, which will continue to operate passenger and commercial vehicle services. Extra cleaning and physical distancing measures are already in effect on those services.”
KiwiRail said it was continuing to monitor the situation.
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