Let it flow, THE BACKLOG of perishable and non-perishable goods flying back and forth between Hawaii and points beyond is finally on the move, say local freight and air cargo companies.
isle air cargo
Stalled for days, air cargo is
beginning to move againBy Lyn Danninger
ldanninger@starbulletin.comBut restrictions are still making it difficult for some shippers to move goods, and therefore for some products to make it onto store shelves or diners' plates.
Commercial airlines began accepting freight in the middle of last week but can take only goods from known customers. The same rule applies to freight forwarders and air cargo carriers.
The rule has produced some desperate calls from small or infrequent shippers and those without established freight relationships, said Brian Suzuki, president of freight forwarding company Hawaii Air Cargo.
Local customers, unsure about the future, are also reluctant to continue placing their usual orders, Suzuki said.
"It's mainly uncertainty," he said Thursday. "As far as this morning, there are no backlogs here but the biggest problem is people who are holding off ordering."
"The biggest cutback is in anything related to tourism. Retailers are reluctant to order for the future or are canceling immediate orders," he said.
Air cargo carrier Pacific Air Cargo flies to Los Angeles five times a week. It also offers connecting service by truck out of Los Angeles to about 20 different U.S. cities and Mexico.
Station manager Tom Ingram said business was brisk, added to by those who would normally ship on commercial airlines.
But there is still an abundance of freight destined for Hawaii that continues to be delayed in Los Angeles, Ingram said.The company worked non-stop last week to move freight, Ingram said.
For the industry, an air cargo symposium that had been scheduled for Thursday and Friday has been postponed until Nov. 14. The title of the program was changed to reflect the new reality, Hawaii Air Cargo's Suzuki said, to "Profiting from Air Cargo ... New Rules of the Game."
Some uncertainty still remains for cargo originating in Hawaii but destined to go beyond the U.S. West Coast. It's not clear which airline flights are going to be cut by the big carriers, Suzuki said.
"We're hearing that carriers are cutting back flights so that means there may be routing issues for cargo," he said.
"Also, we haven't been able to determine what is moving and what is not," he said.
Suzuki said his company is trucking freight headed for Hawaii from the East Coast to the West Coast because of problems guaranteeing space on mainland passenger flights heading west.
Norma Acob, one of the owners of Commodity Forwarders, a company that specializes in shipping perishable items, reports things are slowly getting back to normal. But it now takes a little more time to tender shipments, she said.
All containerized cargo must be inspected and some airline carriers also require loading containers on site. That slows things down further, she said.
But by the middle of this week, Acob said, business should be back to normal.
"The airlines need and want the business so everyone is cooperating to get it back to normal," she said.
Making adjustments for an uncertain future is now a routine part of planning for many businesses.
At specialty food retail store The Strawberry Connection, the shelves are not empty but the company was glad to hear a shipment it had ordered and expected about a week ago is now on the West Coast.
"We expect it next week Friday so this will give us a good boost," said Becky Choy, one of the owners of the company.
Plans for Christmas, however, are another matter.
"All the programs we wanted to initiate for Christmas went out the window," she said.
The company was going to start taking pre-orders from customers for a number of specialty foods such as cheese that it planned to import from Europe. But because shipments can't be guaranteed, for the moment plans are on hold
If the situation improves and shipments can be arranged in time, Strawberry Connection will re-instate the program, Choy said.
In the meantime, alternate plans for the season are underway, she said.
For restaurants, a good supply of local fish has helped avoid what could have been an economically disastrous week -- especially for those who specialize in seafood fare.
At John Dominis restaurant, general manager Al Yim said the air freight ban and current slowdown has affected some, but not all, of the seafood the restaurant serves.
"It's affected some items we get like clams and oysters from the Pacific Northwest and East Coast and also produce and fruit," he said.The timing has also been bad for the restaurant's recently opened an oyster bar.
"We were bringing in six or eight varieties of oysters so it's put a damper on that," Yim said.
But Maine lobsters are different matter, in large part because the restaurant deals with three different lobster purveyors.
"We're just glad we didn't put all our marbles in one place. If we had it could have affected us tremendously," he said.
"So far we've been OK but now we're just waiting for the next shipment to see what happens."
Cuts in inter-island and mainland flights have hurt some of the state's biggest flower growers and to a lesser degree the florists who sell them.
A national floral convention scheduled this week that would have brought some of the most influential people in the floral world to Maui was also canceled.
Large wholesale and retail florist Watanabe Floral had a few tense moments last week, said Leland Watanabe, cut flower manager at the company.
"It was spooky. I was scared on Friday," he said.
"If we didn't have shipment on Saturday our cupboards would have been bare on Monday," he said.
About 65 percent of Watanabe Floral's products come from the mainland and other parts of the world such as South America, he said.
But Watanabe counts himself lucky because of long-standing relationships with air freight companies which helped move shipments quickly once air service resumed.
But even with service almost back to normal, Watanabe concedes he is still uncertain.
"I'm just looking at tomorrow and the next day and that's it," he said.
