As dozens of ships and tens of thousands of cargo containers sit idle at West Coast ports, some stores in Hawaii are turning to airplanes.
Pacific Air Cargo added a flight that arrived Sunday morning. An air-conditioned 747 flew from Los Angeles, packed with fresh produce destined for Costco, Safeway and Foodland stores here on Oahu.
Company representative Paul Skellon says there has been quite a bit of additional demand. “We’re very fortunate that we have access to quite a sizeable fleet of 747 aircraft and larger aircraft than this particular model of 747. So we feel comfortable at this stage that we will be able to match capacity with demand.”
Skellon says Pacific Air Cargo normally runs five round trips per week, with the planes also filled with outbound produce.
He says there’s also been demand for urgent medical supplies, destined for hospitals across the state.
Unloading of cargo ships on the West Coast is expected to resume on Tuesday. President Obama this weekend sent his labor secretary to California to try to speed up resolution of the labor dispute between the dockworkers’ union and shipping companies, which halted the unloading for the three-day weekend.
