Slot berthing issues hold back service level agreements

Alan Peat THE PATH towards service level agreements (SLAs) being signed between shipping lines and the SA port authorities has not yet come to an end, according to the Container Liner Operators Forum (Clof). Chairman Dave Rennie, c.e. of Unifeeder, described the progress to FTW as “not finalised, but progressing reasonably”. One of the delays lies in the still on-going implementation of the slot-berthing procedure which grants “priority berths” to approved lines at the container terminals at SA’s main commercial ports. One of the conditions of signing up an SLA is that approved lines or conferences will be members of this system, with guaranteed arrival schedules in their liner services. With the primary target of the Port of Durban still waiting till end-January before its slot-berthing programme is completed - and shipping lies still busy trying to get their declared scheduling finalised - the SLAs are rather in abeyance. Clearly no-one is going to sign up a contract with heavy penalties for not complying with the agreed service levels when no-one is yet sure what the final scheduling parameters will be. But, said Rennie, the lines and conferences are still negotiating with SA Port Operations, in expectation of the Durban slot-berthing system being fully up-and-running by the end of the month.