THE almost five-day cancellation of trips of fastcrafts docked at the Bredco port in Bacolod City in the past two weeks due to bad weather has resulted to opportunity losses amounting to about P3.5 million.
As of Wednesday, the Philippine Coast Guard has not yet lifted the cancellation of trips of small vessels issued on Monday due to the gale warning across seaboards of Negros and Panay.
Frank Carbon, operator of Weesam Express, said the three-day cancellation of trips has caused them another opportunity loss worth P1.5 million.
Trips were first cancelled on January 8 after Negros Occidental, including Bacolod City, was placed under Tropical Cyclone Warning Signal Number 1.
Sea vessel trips resumed only after Pagasa lifted the storm signal in the province around 11 a.m. the following day.
This has initially caused about P2 million worth of opportunity losses among three fastcraft vessels plying the Bacolod-Iloilo-Bacolod routes with an average of 38 departures per day.
Carbon said the good thing is that the latest cancellation goes with the “lean season” thus, the amount of opportunity losses is not that big.
“Lean season for sea vessel trips is between the second week of January and February, where the number of passengers drops up to 30 percent,” he said, adding that the peak period will resume from March onwards in time for summer.
Carbon had earlier said that although there are no fuel expenses due to cancellation of trips, they still have to cover fixed costs like salaries of personnel and electricity expenses, among others.
Thus, in order to lessen losses, they are calling on the Pagasa weather bureau and the Coast Guard to possibly modify the schedule of the issuance of gale warning advisories.
Instead of lifting the warning at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m., they can make it 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. so that the operators can maximize their operations, Carbon said.
“Amid the existing cancellation advisory, there are times within the day that fastcrafts may already resume trips without waiting for the lifting order at 5 p.m.,” he pointed out.