Officials with Labrador Marine say they’ve seen an increase in the number of passengers crossing the Strait of Belle Isle compared to the last couple of years.

The company says between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, almost 90,000 people made the crossing on the Qajaq W. Totals were just over 82,500 and 83,700 for the same time period in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

The same kind of trend has been seen for the number of private vehicles, with nearly 38,500 transported across the strait so far this year, compared to about 33,000 in 2022 and 35,200 in 2023.

However, numbers of commercial vehicles and tour buses were down compared to the past two years.

Labrador Marine general manager Capt. Austin Daley attributes increases to a new booking app — MyLMI — or My Labrador Marine Inc.

He says about 60 per cent of their travellers are using the app.

Daley says numbers peaked at 103,000 passengers in 2023, but they expect to exceed that when final numbers are in for this year.