DP World Access Fee Hikes "Tone Deaf" During Current COVID-19 Crisis Late on Friday afternoon (27 March), after a very stressful week by vast numbers of businesses in the Australian economy responding to the COVID-19 health pandemic, DP World Australia announced changes to its access fees levied on container transport operators in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane from May 2020.
The fee hikes for terminal access for full import containers, and some other access fees related to truck entry, have been labelled "tone deaf" by container transport operators, who, along with their customers, are facing significant cash-flow concerns during the worst global health crisis since the end of the First World War.
The timing of the increases, and yet again, a lack of any form of consultation with their landside "customers", beggars belief.
DP World Australia has announced decreases in their infrastructure charges on full container exports, clearly playing "catch up" with the move by rival Patrick Terminals in January to differentiate the access price for exports.
But, they have made up for the export fee decreases by raising terminal access fees for full container imports. As the majority flow of container trade in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane is imports, DP World will be collecting far more fees from imports than exports.
This foreign-owned company, in a pseudo monopoly position within the container logistics chain, has shown little regard for container transport operators facing a significant cash-flow squeeze, or for Australia's importers who from May will pay significantly more for landside terminal access once the fees are passed through the supply chain by transport operators.
It's all about their bottom line, and not about the general welfare of the container logistics chain in these unprecedented times.
This comes at a time when many importers, large and particularly small, are facing unprecedented interruptions in their supply chains, while the whole landside logistics sector has significant cash flow concerns, with worst possibly to come if further stages of economic "lockdown" are implemented by governments.
Another major fee increase announced relates to truck interaction with their terminals. Trucks that do not arrive for their booked slot are charged a No-Show Fee. In Melbourne and Brisbane, this is to climb from $150.25 per event to $210.35 – an increase of 40%, with no negotiation or justification.
It's interesting to note that the No-Show Fee increase didn't occur in Port Botany where mandatory regulatory standards apply to the landside terminal interface. Also, none of these fee increases have been applied in Fremantle, where the WA Government and the state-owned port authority, Fremantle Ports, took a dim view of DP World's previous landside fee increases announced in January this year.
This makes many CTAA alliance companies question whether mandatory interface regulations are required, or at the very least pricing regulation, which CTAA and other industry voices have been calling on governments to consider for a long time.
It's further disappointing, because CTAA had written formally to DP World Australia on two occasions since the start of the pandemic, asking what the stevedore company could do to work with transport operators and others in the chain who are experiencing real cash-flow concerns. CTAA received no response … we now know why … they were plotting this bombshell.
The DP World fee increase announcements for Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane can be downloaded from the DP World Customer Portal, under the heading "Public Tariff Schedule" at the bottom left-hand side of the Portal home page: https://customer.dpworld.com.au/caremore/login |