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Thursday, August 03, 2006
Fastcraft firm serving Cebu, Bohol ports incurs losses
Believing that the Cebu-Tubigon-Cebu route is more profitable, a Manila-based fastcraft company stopped serving a route in Luzon to have two vessels operating between Cebu and Bohol.
But after less than a month of operation, Sta. Cruz Shipping Services Corp. (SCSSC) had to send one of the vessels back to Luzon, company president and general manager Juanito Preclaro.
Preclaro said that the company, which has a management contract with Sun Ship Management Co., has been losing an average of P10,000 to P11,000 per trip since it started plying the Cebu-Tubigon-Cebu route last July 19.
He blamed the losses on high fuel cost, which accounts for some 58-percent of the company’s operations expenses per month.
“But the remaining (one) vessel will definitely still serve the Cebu-Tubigon-Cebu route. We still see good business in the said route,” he said in an interview last Tuesday.
Advise
“We were advised that the said route was profitable. But we have discovered that this is true only during peak days, such as Saturday and Sunday,” he said.
SCSSC used to ply the Marinduque-Lucena route in Luzon.
Preclaro said the com-pany’s losses due to fuel cost would have been bigger had it not use oil products from Genergex, a wholesaler of diesel and bunker fuel in Cebu, for its vessels.
Being a new player, SCSSC is still implementing a promotion rate to attract passengers to try its services. The rate is lower than the estimated rate that will allow the company to at least recover operation cost.
SCSSC’s 191-seater fastcraft, MV Vanessa P1, has two round trips for the Cebu-Tubigon (Bohol) route daily. It has applied with the Maritime Industry Authority for four round trips daily.
No passengers
“We do only two trips because most of the time, there are no passengers in the afternoon,” Preclaro said.
Since it started plying the route, MV Vanessa carried a maximum of 170 and a minimum of seven pasengers.
SCSSC may not have competition as far as travel speed is concerned, but slow boats with travel time of two hours—only an hour longer than MV Vanessa’s travel time—are threats to the company as they offer cheaper fares.
Fastcraft operators also face competition from airlines serving with direct flights between Manila and Bohol.
Last year, poor business prompted Aboitiz-led Supercat Fast Ferry Corp. to temporarily stopped plying the Cebu-Bohol route and to instead use its vessels for the Cebu-Bacolod and Cebu-Iloilo routes, which have higher passenger traffic.
Supercat’s then assistant vice president for operations Ed Nicolas said the continuing rise of fuel prices have forced Supercat to ply the routes where it can recover its operational costs, especially after the company streamlined its operations by reducing the number of vessels to five from 14. (JBN)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 3, 2006 issue)
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