Trucking industry leaders hit social media upset that trucks which had made the trek up from Auckland to pick up Christmas containers had been "turned back", the implication being it was unexpected.
Road Transport Forum chief executive Nick Leggett said the Saturday problem was due to Northport's booking system. It had allocated trucks slots to pick up containers so they drove north expecting to pick up at those times - before 3pm.
Leggett said the port's booking system "trumps" an advisory issued some days previously.
He believed the scarcity of trucks this morning was again due to Northport's booking system.
A Northport spokesman responded that the booking system was fully operational.
"The booking system implemented by Northport in the very brief window of time it had to prepare for this ship call is extremely rudimentary. It only displays available slots, rather than all slots booked. So if there are no slots available it will display as empty.
The spokesman said at around 1pm on Saturday it appeared that there were far more trucks queued outside Northport than were booked to come in.
"This is why we decided to alert drivers that 1) we had had to reduce our loading rate as we were down to one loader and 2) those that had not booked a slot were not likely to be serviced before we were due to shut the port. As it was, Northport was still loading booked trucks until past 1600 hours (4pm) – more than an hour after it had told the trade on Wednesday that it needed to stop operations.
"Northport is now officially over the political gamesmanship and posturing around the work it is trying to do."
The spokesman said it would be making no further comment.
Leggett said Northport's closure on Saturday was entirely reasonable for safety reasons.
"They talk about their workers getting fatigued but truck drivers get fatigue as well. They've driven 150km up (to Northport), then they are turned round and have to drive 150km back.
"We just have to work in together. Probably communication could be improved."
National Road Carriers' chief executive David Aitken said he had no wish to "get into a fight with Northport".
His organisation had not seen the Wednesday advisory from Northport that the port would shut at 3pm on Saturday. Nor had another major trade group, he said.
Aitken said a member had a 10am booking on Saturday, waited two hours and was then advised his truck was most unlikely to be loaded. The truck returned to Auckland without a load.
Aitken said it cost $3 per km to run an appropriate truck, so that meant this truck travelled around 300km for no earnings.
"Our biggest concern from the start has been safety (of drivers) - we want it to run smoothly. We want to be able to operate safety and send a truck 140-150km and be confident the booking it has will be honoured and it will come back with a container."
He has been reported as saying it seemed Northport didn't have the resources or the facilities to complete the operation efficiently. And a forum spokesperson earlier told the Herald Northport had over-reached in accepting the container ship.
Northport, a small container port compared to the primary Auckland and Tauranga gateways, agreed last week to accept the biggest container ship it had ever tied up to help get Christmas imports to Auckland shelves and further south as heavy ship congestion at Ports of Auckland continues.
The ship, the Constantinos P, would have had to wait until at least December 22 to unload at Auckland.
Northport has just two harbour cranes and well-signalled that unloading the 1170 boxes destined for Auckland would be a challenge and take longer than at a bigger primary port.
Trucks would have to take the cargo south as rail infrastructure is not in place.
It was estimated by roading officials it would take around 800 trucks to move all the containers south on the challenging road between south Whangarei and Auckland.
The weekend break was to give operational staff rest to comply with safety standards.
The Wednesday advisory from Northport management has been seen by the Herald.
A Northport spokesman said on Saturday the statement by National Road Carriers was "completely misleading". It had "gutted" Northport workers who had thrown their all at the effort to get Christmas goods to Auckland in time amid severe congestion issues at Ports of Auckland.
