Hawaii’s largest interisland ocean cargo carrier saw business slip in the first quarter after three consecutive year-over-year gains.
Young Brothers LLC,
a state-regulated business that barges cargo between Honolulu and six neighbor island ports, said its delivery volume slipped 5% in the first quarter from
the same period last
year.
The decline was largely driven by customers in the transportation and food/beverage industries, according to the report.
The report also showed that volume declines affected Hawaii’s three biggest neighbor islands — Hawaii island, Maui and Kauai — while Molokai and Lanai had volume gains.
Keith Kiyotoki, Young Brothers sales and marketing manager, noted in the report that the state economy, which is growing more slowly than it was in recent years, helped support cargo volume gains from customers in the agriculture, construction and wholesale/retail industries.
“That said, we saw a decrease in overall cargo volume at all ports except Lanai and Molokai,” he said.
Transportation and food/beverage customers ship the most goods on Young Brothers, and respective volume decreases of 16% and 8% from these customers were enough to pull down total cargo volume for the quarter.
Other customer categories that had cargo volume declines were automobile, energy, entertainment, manufacturing and utilities.
Besides the gains from agriculture, construction and wholesale/retail industries highlighted by Kiyotoki, government and recycling/waste customers also shipped more goods.
Young Brothers operates seven barges with 12 weekly port calls. The company began releasing quarterly cargo volume reports in 2012 but did not release any last year.
