The Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) activated the Tazlina ferry for more than a dozen routes up the Lynn Canal over the next two months.
The Alaska Class ferry, long tied up in Juneau as a reserve, will call on Haines eight times each in February and March, on Sundays and Fridays.
Southeast communities have faced wide gaps in ferry service this winter due to a combination of factors, including a worker shortage (as cited by AMHS but contested by the ferry unions), overlaps in dry dock scheduling and repair delays.
Routes to Haines in January were canceled because repairs on the Matanuska ferry were delayed by a few weeks. That ferry returned to service on Feb. 1.
The state announced that it had activated the Tazlina shortly after it contracted with two private companies—Goldbelt and Allen Marine Lines—to run passenger ferries to communities across Southeast temporarily.
Given the lack of service across Southeast, there has been public pressure on the state to activate the Tazlina, a $60 million ship built in 2019 but largely unused. At a local town hall in December, Sen. Jesse Kiehl said he supported bringing the Tazlina into service. Earlier this month, representatives of the three ferry workers’ unions released a statement requesting the ship’s use while the LeConte is in overhaul.
“Repeatedly we have been told the Tazlina is the ready reserve ship, so why was she not prepared to take up this emergency service?“ Ben Goldrich of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association said in the press release.
The state said it had postponed running the Tazlina due to a staff shortage and expiration of operating certificates, but ferry union representatives have said crew members could have been pulled from ships in overhaul onto active routes, according to a recent KTOO report.