Queen of Melbourne operating un­der Interlink Shipping Line Limited last night left for her maiden voyage to Kadavu.

The formerly Australia registered vessel had arrived in Suva early last year from Geelong in Mel­bourne.

The more than 350 passenger seating vessel is expected to ser­vice Suva, Vunisea and Kavala and then back to Suva three times in a week starting next week.

Interlink Shipping Line Limited Director Ashish Kumar says they intend to at least take three trips a week before finalising a schedule that fits the demand of customers.

“After our three trips we would want to see the response, if the re­sponse is good, we will adjust our schedule according to the needs and demands of our customers,” Mr Kumar said.

“This would of great help to the people of Kadavu, it will be good in terms of maritime transport, as you can see our introductory fare is $35 which I think is the cheap­est one could get right now, that means a person on average is able to save $15 one way,” he said.

The vessel can also handle deck loading with cargoes, trucks and cars.

“The vessel will be able to carry eight large trucks and 12 to 15 small vehicles on a trip,” he said.

“We plan to have a trip for the convenience of everyone, we plan to have a trip bound for Suva from Kadavu on Friday and then de­parts for Kadavu again on Sunday morning.

“This will benefit farmers who wish to bring their produce over to sell, and those who wish to come over to Suva for the weekend.

“We understand how they love their farming and we want to pro­vide the service that will make things easier for them to sell their produce.

“That’s what we plan to do but we will see how it goes the first three test runs. Our plan is if this new route to Kadavu works well then, then we should put a bigger vessel on this route.

“Also, before the end of this year, we will be replacing MV Wester­land with a new vessel,”

“We have employed about 15 to 18 people with the introduction of this new vessel and new routes from tonight.

“Nowadays companies have been remodifying fishing vessels to make them passenger vessels, we do not believe in this.

“We believe in giving our custom­ers value for their money and con­venient mode of travelling.

“We would like to thank our cus­tomers who have supported us in moving this shipping service fur­ther, we have started with step one on the introduction of MV and now we are taking step two with the introduction Queen of Melbourne and later on step three with the introduction of a new ves­sel to replace MV Westerland.

“We also would like to thank the Government for helping incentiv­ise the shipping industry to what it is today.”