Flower exporters grow anxious
The airline fuel crisis couldn’t have come at a more nail-biting time for peony grower Andrew Gallagher.
He was about to begin the harvest for his first overseas shipment via Auckland next week.
Refining NZ said it expects to repair the damaged fuel pipeline by next Tuesday.
If so, it will be in the nick of time for North Canterbury-based Gallagher and other, mainly South Island, peony growers if airlines can get flights back on schedule.
‘‘If you miss out and the product doesn’t get sent, there goes your profit after you’ve spent a lot of money getting it to export standard,’’ Gallagher said.
Mike Desmond, who is the managing director of flower exporter Eastern and Global (NZ), said he was aggrieved that one airline he dealt with had put up freight rates by 50 per cent.
‘‘They’re looking after passengers ahead of freight and that’s fair enough. But lifting rates like that is just a gouge,’’ Desmond said.
‘‘We can find ways to compensate but we’ll know who’s on our side next time.’’
Eastern & Global, based at Auckland Airport, supports more than 500 grower-suppliers of cut flowers, foliage and greens, moving about 800 tonnes of flowers a year around the world.
‘‘It’s the uncertainty of getting product to market,’’ Desmond said.
‘‘If someone rings and wants 200 boxes of flowers in Amsterdam by Saturday we have to say now: ‘We don’t know if we can do it.’
‘‘We got a shipment on a flight to Hong Kong via Brisbane where they refuelled but then they had mechanical problems so we had a product in a foreign port subject to strict quarantine standards.
‘‘It finally landed a day and half later, but it’s a perishable product.
‘‘The big thing is loss of reputation. And you can’t just sell the product next week.’’
Desmond said assurances about repairing the fuel pipeline meant nothing until it happened. ‘‘It will cost the industry money,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, exporters of less perishable products were less affected, according to New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association chief executive Dieter Adam.
He said so far the biggest effect on his members appeared to be on business meetings for people based in Auckland and Christchurch.
He expected to learn more at a briefing with members.
New Zealand Rock Lobster Industry Council chief executive Darryl Sykes said none of his members had reported effects yet.
‘‘Certainly we’re aware of possible hold-ups if flights to China are cancelled, but the main carriers seem to have worked out their fuel supplies so far,’’ Sykes said.