Navis - big improvement but room for more

As we asked port users in June: Is Navis now fixed? The answer then was yes. But while reports immediately after the repair was completed indicated that it seemed to have worked, there was no guarantee that the problems were finally over. So we asked the question again. Speaking from a shipping line point of view, the first reply came from Glenn Delve, marketing director of MSC in SA. “There has been a huge improvement,” he said, “but it’s still not perfect. There are still occasional glitches.” That’s just what has always been, according to Kevin Martin, speaking for the short-haul container truckers in Durban as chairman of the Durban Harbour Carriers' Association (DHCA). “It’s back to par,” he said, but still implying that par did not exclude the not-so-occasional duff shot by the port management system. “Satisfactory” was the word used by another shipping line, executive in the ships' agency business. “We’ve had no real issues since that dreadful crash in May,” he added. The question about whether Navis is once again working as normal is not the answer YES in capital letters that everyone in the shipping and freight industry wants to hear. But it’s back to normal – although that “normal” is nowhere near perfection. CAPTION Back to 'normal'. Photo: Shannon Van Zyl