ATI pushing Batangas port use

WITH trade volumes growing alongside the country’s expanding economy, listed Asian Terminals Inc. ( ATI) said that companies based in the Calabarzon can be more competitive and profitable if they import through ATI’s modern Batangas Container Terminal ( BCT) as a complement to the ports in Manila.

“Calabarzon [ Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon] manufacturers should seize and maximize the advantages of BCT, especially with shipping, customs, trucking and brokerage systems now seamlessly integrated at the port,” said Andrew Hoad, executive vice president of ATI.

According to Hoad, the Batangas and Manila ports should continue to be developed and improved to address the import needs of companies in southern Luzon and those in and around Metro Manila, respectively.

The Manila ports, with South Harbor being operated by ATI, will always play a critical role in business because of their central location and proximity to many manufacturing companies in the National Capital Region and its surrounding environs.

But as far as ATI’s Batangas port is concerned, Hoad said that significant cost savings could be realized by companies from flexible delivery arrangements and storage periods for containers. Lower drayage cost per container is also incurred as truckers can haul four times as much cargo through BCT than Manila, since there is no truck ban in Batangas.

The company said that faster delivery of goods is made possible as the port is directly connected to the major highways via modern infrastructure. This is further complemented by the quick release of cargoes through the responsive and online transactions of the Bureau of Customs.

BCT spans 12 hectares and is furnished with quay cranes, complete container handling equipment, and facilities for ancillary services. It is regularly serviced by MCC Transport which directly connects Batangas to Taiwan, Hongkong, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore.

Recognizing the need to further develop the carrier network for Batangas, Hoad urged importers of components and raw materials in Calabarzon to push their suppliers for freight on board or FOB terms of trade, and nominate Batangas to fully realize big savings for the benefit of consumers.

At the recent Terminal Operators Conference held in Hongkong, Hoad pressed for the balanced approach of having both Manila and outlying ports to further encourage the country’s growth, saying that they can keep in check business costs and ultimately consumer prices, besides from ensuring that Manila- dependent businesses remain properly and efficiently supplied.

To minimize traffic from container trucks, he said that the best solution for now is the planned elevated connector roads, through the government’s private- publicpartnership program, which would directly link the ports in Manila to North and South Luzon Expressways.

Ports in Batangas and Subic have a combined capacity of 700,000 twenty equivalent units, barely a quarter of the 2.6 million-TEU annual throughput of ports in Manila, showing just how important Manila is right now, Hoad said.

ATI earlier disclosed that it is earmarking P1.8 billion in capital investments from its internal funds to back port development projects this year.

ROSALIE C. PERIABRAS

This picture taken in Tangerang, outside Jakarta this month shows two Lion Air Boeing planes taxiing shortly after landing at Sukarno- Hatta airport. A fresh rivalry between the world’s biggest planemakers has kicked off in Indonesia after Airbus made a record multi- billion dollar deal in a country that has huge market potential and has up until now been solid Boeing territory. JAKARTA: A new rivalry between the world’s biggest planemakers is heating up in Indonesia after a record deal for Airbus in a market with huge potential that until now has been a “fortress” for Boeing.

The European company in the past consistently lost contracts to its US rival in Southeast Asia’s top economy, but budget carrier Lion Air’s 18.4- billion- euro ($ 23.8 billion) order last week for 234 medium- haul Airbus jets may be a game- changer in the feud for market share.

“This is a major deal for Airbus because, generally, Indonesia has been a fortress for Boeing,” Ravi Madavaram, an aerospace analyst for Frost and Sullivan in Kuala Lumpur, told Agence France-Presse.

“I think the moment Airbus comes into the picture, more and more low- cost carriers will want an Airbus A320. Then it becomes challenging for Boeing to catch up,” he said.

Lion Air’s A320 deal with Airbus announced in Paris on Monday was the most valuable commercial order booked in history. The second biggest was also made by Lion Air in 2011, in a $ 22.4- billion order for 230 Boeing jets.

The two planemakers have a duopoly over the large- airliner market and competition between them is fierce, with each regularly accusing the other of anticompetitive behavior.

Boeing last year overtook Airbus as the world’s biggest planemaker in terms of aircraft delivered for the first time in 10 years.

“Lion Air was in fact one of the few airlines in the region that had never ordered an aircraft from Airbus. But we never gave up,” Jean- Francois Laval, executive vice president of sales for Airbus Asia, told Agence France- Presse.

“We have not exactly been absent from Indonesia. The new order from Lion Air will significantly increase our presence in the important Indonesian market,” he added.

But Boeing said that the Airbus deal has not ruffled its feathers as it works to deliver more than 300 jets ordered from Lion Air and its offshoot carriers.

“Lion Air has ambitious growth plans and no one airplane manufacturer can meet its needs,” Boeing spokesman Ken Morton told Agence France- Presse.

While slow growth in Western economies is hitting the aviation industry, Asian countries are booming with an emerging middle class keen to take to the air.

“There are three billion people in Asia, there are 300 million people in America. America has about three times more planes right now than Asia,” Tony Fernandes, founder and chief executive officer of Malaysia- based AirAsia, Asia’s biggest budget carrier, said recently in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Big potential

Indonesians are increasingly relying on air travel to link the archipelago of 17,000-odd islands, with up to 900 new planes set to be delivered to Indonesia in the next decade, according to the government.

The potential is massive— only 6 percent of Indonesians have travelled by air, according to officials, in a nation of 240 million people that has consistently clocked annual economic growth above 6 percent.

By 2021, some 180 million passengers are expected to fly domestically in Indonesia, triple the 2011 number, according to the CAPA Center for Aviation.

But in their rush to meet that latent demand, airlines risk buying too many new planes, CAPA chief analyst Brendan Sobie said.

“In some markets you’ll see over- capacity,” he said, warning that carriers will find it hard to turn a profit.

Lion Air, Indonesia’s biggest private carrier, has ordered more than 460 planes in just 16 months, a dramatic expansion that has raised doubts about how it will find the financing, pilots and landing slots.

The airline is banned from the European Union and United States over safety concerns. But it said that it plans to broaden its regional horizons, and observers think it wants to take on AirAsia.

It now operates 92 planes— all Boeings except for one older McDonnell Douglas—to 72 destinations, mostly in Indonesia. The furthest it flies is to Saudi Arabia, a route packed with domestic workers and construction laborers.

In a rare interview with The Star in Malaysia in late 2012, Lion Air’s rags- to- riches founder Rusdi Kirana said that Indonesians in the middle- income bracket were now flying to neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.

“This group will later think of Hong Kong or even Canton [ Guangzhou, in southern China]. And when they have more money they will want to travel to Japan, Korea, north China or Australia,” he said. AFP