Almost 30 tons of fresh tuna was ready to be airlifted last night from Port Moresby, PNG to Cairns in a newly introduced weekly service that should ease much of the industry’s transportation worries.
High freight charges, coupled with poor logistics and poor handling, have forced one major tuna operator to dock much of its fleet in the last few weeks in Lae. Last night’s shipment was to airfreight fish exported by Port Moresby-based operators.
Lae-based long line tuna fishing operator, Maps, only recently went fishing after docking its boats for about three months.
Another operator, Neptune Fisheries, has already tied up six of its boats, which will see scores of employees out of work.
The industry is particularly concerned over the high freight costs that the national airline operator charges. One of them claimed that at about K10.80 a kg, it is strangling the industry.
C T Freight (PNG) Ltd has negotiated the weekly service from an Australian operator to airlift mostly PNG tuna for markets in Japan and began a scheduled service on April 29, utilizing two aircrafts with a combined payload of over 50 tons.
The plane departs early morning on Thursdays from Port Moresby for Cairns where the chilled tuna would be transferred to another aircraft for a direct flight to Japan.
The products are expected to arrive in Japanese ports the same afternoon in time for the Friday and Saturday fish markets, which are very popular in Japan.
“Shippers utilize the service because it gets the produce to markets on Thursday in time for the Friday and Saturday markets,†a C T Freight spokesman said. The plane is also available to go anywhere where there is demand and where the airport can accommodate the craft.
C T Freight is using a Boeing 727, which has a payload capacity of 20 tons and a Belfast C130, capable of lifting 30 tons of cargo.
In anticipation of delivering a similar service out of Lae, C T Freight has just completed a 200-ton capacity cooler at the Nadzab Airport.
The main tuna fishers in Lae are Maps Tuna and Neptune Fisheries.
The same air freighting company also does regular service flights to Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Micronesia for shipment of fish and marine products.