Young Brothers requests amended sailing schedule to Neighbor Islands during COVID-19 pandemic
Young Brothers has requested temporary changes to its sailing schedule for Maui County and Hawaii island amid steep declines in cargo volume during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“These requested temporary adjustments to our sailing schedule will be optimized to utilize the excess capacity on our barges bound for Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Hilo to help ensure that shelves are stocked and our communities are served with steady, reliable inter-island cargo service,” said Keith Kiyotoki, sales and marketing manager, in a news release.
The freight-handling and transportation company submitted the request to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which would go into effect May 5.
The weekly sailing to Kahului with an arrival of Thursday would be suspended; the weekly sailing to Hilo with an arrival of Monday would also be suspended. There are also new times and days for weekly sailings to Kaumalapau and Kaunakakai and an occasional stopover Kaunakakai to pick up agricultural products — a change made to ensure delivery of fresh produce Molokai to neighboring islands.
“My administration is aware of Young Brothers’ request to the PUC to reduce the number of its sailings from three to two for Kahului Harbor and from two to one for Molokai,” Mayor Victorino said in a news release responding to the request. “Our consumers can expect that store shelves will remain stocked with food and other supplies. We expect the same amount of cargo will be shipped each week, although on fewer barge sailings to optimize excess capacity on barges bound for Maui, Molokai and Lanai, and Hilo.”
Victorino thanked Young Brothers for “continuing to provide steady, reliable, interisland cargo service.”
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Young Brothers has also requested to implement new hours of operations to all its ports, including Honolulu, Nawiliwili, Kahului, Kaumalapau, Kaunakakai, Kawaihae and Hilo.
All ports would convert one or two days of regular gate hours — 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. — to half-day operations that end at 11:30 a.m.
Young Brothers said in the release that “it continues to accept essential goods and food items with uninterrupted deliveries at all ports across the state.”
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