Cargo flotilla nears harbor
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
CSX Line's Consumer will sail into Honolulu Harbor this morning with nearly 800 containers worth of cargo representing the first shipment to the Islands from the West Coast in more than a week.
And four Matson Navigation Co. ships are right behind, scheduled to arrive tomorrow, Sunday and Tuesday.
The shipments come just as many shippers and businesses had started to feel the squeeze of the weeklong West Coast dock shutdown that had stopped the flow of goods to the Islands.
"We're happy to get it," said Bryan Wall, store manager of the Mililani Wal-Mart where the inventory has been getting thin on the shelves. Wal-Mart normally gets two shipments a week and, like other retailers, had stockpiled goods in anticipation of the labor problems.
"But you can't stock up on everything," Wall said yesterday.
The 721-foot Consumer is scheduled to arrive from Los Angeles and tie up at 9 a.m. with a full load of fresh meat, produce, paper products, beverages "and just about everything you can think of," said Brian Taylor, vice president and general manager for CSX Lines.
"She is very full," Taylor said. "I don't think you could find another space to get another box on there."
There won't be any fanfare on the dock, Taylor said, "but we're pretty excited. Everybody's very anxious to get this ship in and get some of that freight out and to the stores."
Like Wal-Mart officials, Roger Godfrey, president of Times Supermarket, can hardly wait to get his shipment.
The stores' supplies of produce and meat have been running low, Godfrey said, "and going into the weekend we could sure use the replenishment."
Customers, for the most part, haven't noticed any difference, Godfrey said. But the company has had to spend extra to ship produce by air, although Godfrey had no dollar estimate on the cost yesterday.
Star Markets Ltd., which also has goods coming in on the Consumer, has canceled all advertising specials and begun offering customers 15 percent off everything in the store except tobacco, travel and pharmacy items through Tuesday.
Star President John Fujieki Jr. said yesterday that the supermarket couldn't guarantee sufficient inventory of advertised sale items, so the alternative was created to be fair to consumers.
"We're trying to give the customer a deal across the board," he said.
Fujieki said he wished he had a bigger shipment arriving today, but with more goods coming on other ships Star will be able to resume normal advertised specials next week, he said.
Matson's Kauai arrives tomorrow morning, followed by the Matsonia and Ewa on Sunday and the Chief Gadao on Tuesday.
Matson normally has four ship arrivals per week. But with 29 West Coast ports jammed with ships and tons of rotting produce, it's impossible to pinpoint an arrival schedule, said Matson spokesman Jeff Hull.
"We still have four ships arriving," he said, "it's just not a fixed day-of-the-week service that we have."
Taylor said he hopes that CSX's schedule comes closer to normal after two to 2 1/2 weeks.
"It's just going to take that long to get through the backlog," he said.
Ships returning from Hawai'i will have to take their place in line with all of the others waiting to get loaded and unloaded along the West Coast, he said, particularly in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
For now David Palm, assistant store manager of Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse in Waikele, is just happy to get his Consumer cargo.
"If this had lasted much longer, it would have hurt the whole island."
Advertiser staff writer Andrew Gomes contributed to this report.
