Harbour Air will no longer serve the Cowichan Valley via Maple Bay, according to a press release issued by the company on Sept. 12.
"This difficult decision was not made lightly and is due to a persistent softening in demand," said the release. "We understand that network decisions impact our guests’ transportation options, and we apologize for the inconvenience and thank our guests for their patronage and support."
The carrier also plans to temporarily suspend its nonstop route to Vancouver from Sechelt starting Oct. 8, 2024 until the summer of 2025 and Harbour Air will lay off staff due to the changes.
"As a result of these and other network changes, we have taken the difficult decision to realign our staffing needs to better match our future operational requirements," said the release.
The decisions come after what Harbour Air calls "a network review" with the changes to be implemented as of Oct. 5.
The sea plane service has been a staple at the end of the Maple Bay Marina dock over the years, connecting guests to Vancouver and Richmond both direct, and via the Gulf Islands.
"Harbour Air will continue to provide regular service across our 12 destinations throughout Vancouver Island, the lower mainland, the Gulf Islands, Seattle and other B.C. locations," said the company, noting that patrons wanting to get to Vancouver via their service can still do so from their terminals in Nanaimo and Victoria.
Maple Bay Marina owner David Messier said his group is "pretty disappointed" in the decision.
"It's been a good service and a good partnership for a long time. It's been a good service for the community and it's disappointing on many levels," Messier said. "It's an independent company so they have the ability to make the choices they need to for their business and we certainly respect that but I do believe that this has been a valuable service and is viable," he added. "It's definitely shown it's viable for many years now but it's not our decision to make and we need to be respectful."
Messier said that Maple Bay Marina we still support float planes as best they can.
"There'll be charter planes coming in here and we'll be working with other operators to try to get a similar service in," he said. "We're committed to it, but we're not in the airplane service and we can only do what we can do."
