Marine Atlantic’s new vessel has completed her maiden Argentia voyage without incident after several weeks of trouble with the lubrication and fuel systems. Travellers were rerouted through Port aux Basques and accommodations providers in Placentia Bay lost a lot of business the first month of the heavy tourist season.

The Ala’suinu has larger capacity than its predecessors, and Placentia Mayor Keith Pearson hopes the additional traffic will at least partly make up for the loss of economic spinoff in the region.

He just hopes the rest of the summer goes off without incident so that they can salvage as much of the tourism season as possible.

He says they have great staff in Placentia that could take on more roles if necessary, and that further delays in the service would be catastrophic.

There have been suggestions that the corporation just add four weeks to the back end of the season, meaning Argentia would be available through September, but Darrell Mercer, a spokesman for Marine Atlantic, doesn’t think that the traffic would justify the cost.

Mercer says the boat in September would be half empty but if there was a case to keep it going, they would have a look at it as long as there were no economic loss.