Air freight slowed
A combination of strikes and heavy seasonal traffic has caused a slow-down in air freight out of New Zealand.
At Auckland Airport, hundreds of tonnes of Christmas cargo are awaiting shipment.
Most of it is destined for overseas, particularly Australia and Hong Kong, butsome of it is for other New Zealand centres. At the moment, Air New Zealand and Qantas have had to stop accepting freight for Australia direct from consigners.
They hope to begin again within a few days as refuellers at all Australian airports, except Sydney, graduallv return to work. Christchurch has a much smaller problem however, according to an Air New Zealand spokesman. Although the Australian strike had caused a slowdown in the rate In which cargo could be shipped out
of Christchurch, the situ»j ation was rapidly correcting itself. He expected what small backlog there was, to be cleared within two or three days. No ban had been put on accepting Australia-bound freight as had been done at Auckland, although perishables had been prohibited during the period of the strike.
The main problem generally has been caused by the Australian refuellers' strike, and extra heavy mail and seasonal freight. Domestically, a work-to-rule by cargo workers caused a build-up which resulted in Air New Zealand refusing to accept air cargo bound for Auckland, a few days ago. The workers returned to normal work on Wednesday, and a union meeting yesterday was expected to resolve this dispute. Freight traffic to other
(parts of the world has also ‘been slowed however. Only a dribble of cargo consigned for Hong Kong and Singapore has been getting through, while the flow to Europe and the Pacific has also dwindled somewhat. The heavy backlog which developed on the Hong Kong and Singapore flights was also influenced by the Australian strike.
Normally, cargo which could not be flown direct to these places was flown via Australa.
As the DCIO flights to Hong Kong have been almost filled with passengers, the cargo capacity has had to be decreased on this extra kng flight.
An Air New Zealand spokesman said it was hoped to get rid of much of the Australian and Hong Kong build-ups within a few weeks.
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Press, 22 December 1978, Page 4
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367Air freight slowed Press, 22 December 1978, Page 4
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