Air Niugini’s alleged failure to ship on time to Japan 72 boxes of frozen tuna could cost a fresh fish exporter over K300,000 in unrealized revenue.
Emmanuel Balamus, general manager of CT Freight, the shipping agent of exporter Fairwell Investment Ltd, said yesterday the frozen tuna was meant for sale in the Japanese fish market on early Friday morning, but failed to make it.
Mr. Balamus said technical problems have delayed Air Niugini’s PX010 flight to Australia twice – on Wednesday and Thursday.
The tuna shipment was booked on this flight and was meant to reach Narita, Japan on Thursday to make it for the early Friday morning trading at the fresh fish market.
“That was the first leg of the journey… then the second delay occurred when the shipment was rebooked on the PX392 to Singapore and Narita but again failed to leave due to failure on the part of Air Niugini staff in Port Moresby to attach the shipment’s original documents,†he said.
Mr. Balamus said the shipping documents were claimed missing by Air Niugini staffers, and was found only on Friday morning. He has alleged that the missing documents were intentionally “misplaced†to sabotage the tuna shipment to the detriment of the exporter. He said CT Freight will lodge a claim with Air Niugini for compensation equivalent to the amount lost from the unfulfilled sale.
He said the shipment could have fetched K308, 070 had it been sold at the Japanese fresh fish market on Friday morning. “This is the estimated amount that would have been lost at K45 per kilo, the usual price for high quality fresh tuna like the ones we shipped,†he said. “We monitored the cargo shipment until it arrived at the Japanese market where it was sold at a price much lower than was expected because it was no longer of the quality that could fetch the highest price,†he said.
“Incidents of this nature are not good for the tuna industry because they give a bad impression among world tuna buyers especially the Japanese, about how inefficient our shipping system is,†Mr. Balamus said.
Mr. Balamus said the shipping hitch could have been avoided if the Air Niugini staff had liaised with other international airlines under the Inter-line Agreement to move this particular tuna shipment according to schedule. He said that such incidents had occurred in the past and had been made up for by the involved parties. However, he stressed that they should be completely avoided for everyone’s benefit.
Air Niugini could not comment on the issue when contacted, saying the airline official spokesperson was out of the office.