Maher Terminals suspends Saturday hours
The Port of New York and New Jersey’s busiest container terminal is suspending Saturday hours.
Faced with declining usage by truckers, Maher Terminals is ending the 8 a.m.-4 p.m. hours it has offering on Saturday for the past 18 months.
Spokesman Sam Crane said the decision to close the terminal to truckers on Saturday may be re-evaluated. If there is demand, Maher may restart them again in the fall.
Maher's Elizabeth, N.J. terminal is the only terminal in the port that offered Saturday hours. It also offers extended hours on weekdays when it is open 6 a.m.-10 p.m.
Crane said the decision to shut down on weekends had been under consideration for some time and had nothing to do with the company’s sale last week to an investment fund managed by Deutsche Bank.
In contrast to weekdays when the terminal sometimes handles more than 4,500 boxes per day, in June Saturday volumes ranged from 288 to 76, and the volumes were trending downward through the month.
“It’s been very disappointing,” Crane said. The company said the Saturday hours cost it $1 million a year to maintain.
Crane said Maher would meet with truckers to find ways to increase use of the terminal on Saturday. He said the terminal has been told that some drivers do not want to work on weekends and other companies have trouble finding warehouses to make deliveries to on the weekend.
But some truckers say turn times are already too long at the terminal and fear the ending of Saturday hours could aggravate that situation, especially as volumes pick up later in the summer and into the fall.