In a recent media press conference, leader of Government Business Hon. Andrew A. Fahie announced that the daily number of passengers coming from the USVI to the BVI only, will soon be increased to over 100 passengers. Fahie said, “Decisions about the ferry loads and number of passengers facilitated between Tortola and St. Thomas are not and I repeat are not decisions that we can take on our own. They must be coordinated with the authorities in the United States Virgin Islands who have their own protocols and constraints that they are working with. As I indicated a few days ago, your government has been engaged in active and productive dialogue with counterparts in the USVI to increase the number of persons allowed to travel between the BVI and USVI. So we are nailing down the final details to increase the capacity from 50 passengers to 65 per trips and having two trips per day from Tortola at 8am and 11am in the morning period and two trips returning from St. Thomas at 2pm and 4pm in the afternoon.”
Fahie continued, “We are also engaged in additional negotiations and discussions to have the number of passengers allowed on ferries to travel only from the USVI to the BVI to further be increased to just over 100 persons within a few weeks. These discussions have been ongoing and yielding results. As we go through these processes we are also assessing our systems are working.”
