Pasha drops Tacoma route, beefs up L.A. services

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Following its acquisition of Horizon Lines operations in Hawaii, the Pasha Group has dropped one route, altered service in a second quarter, and beefed up a third.

These decisions have sent some former Horizon Lines customers to rival shipping lines, at a time when Pasha is also having trouble keeping some former Horizon Lines employees.

Without announcing it widely, Pasha dropped the former Horizon service from Tacoma, Wash., forcing customers to switch either to Matson, which sails from Seattle, or one of two barge lines sailing from the Pacific Northwest to Hawaii.

Pasha has also dropped the former Horizon direct sailings from Oakland, offering instead a sailing from Oakland to Honolulu by way of Los Angeles, which has diverted more business to Matson.

Matson has put an extra ship into service to accommodate all the business it has picked up from these cuts to the previous service offered by Horizon Lines. As many as 100 customers may be affected by these changes, shipping industry sources said.

Pasha this week announced a new "LA-Hawaii Express," putting two ships into service on the Los Angeles-Honolulu corridor providing sailings in three and a half days twice a week.

One of the two ships is a brand new vessel ordered by Pasha before it knew it would be acquiring Horizon Lines' Hawaii operations and its four aging ships.

The time it takes to sail from the West Coast to Hawaii depends on how fast a shipping line is prepared to sail and how much fuel it is willing to burn.

Pasha hired an Arizona company to manage its customer service but offered work to all eight Horizon Lines customer service agents at Sand Island. Seven accepted the offers but three of those agents changed their minds later. Pasha says it will fill those openings locally.

The liquidation of Horizon Lines also involved the sale of its Alaska operations to Matson, which hired substantially the entire Alaska management and work force to continue those operations seamlessly.