Week In Review : Intermediary

The Global Shippers’ Forum said Friday it would continue to take liner regulation to the carrier industry, the group said in a declaration from its annual meeting this week. GSF, which brings together shipper associations from Asia, Europe, North America and Africa, met in Macau this week. The group railed against carrier behavior this year. “The past year has witnessed a variety of u...

Seaboard Marine said it has started a service to and from Belize via Miami, Houston and New Orleans, as well as Cristobal, Panama, and Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. The service will offer northbound departures direct from Belize to Miami every Tuesday. “Belize customers will be able to utilize the Seaboard network throughout the Caribbean Basin," said Jose Concepcion, Seaboard Marine vice pre...

Project and roll-on/roll-off specialist carrier Nordana said Thursday it will offer service with multipurpose ro/ro vessels from its regular ports in the Mediterranean to Manzanillo in Mexico on its Mediterranean-Americas service. The carrier will accept rolling stock, cars, containers, breakbulk, heavy lift and project cargoes. Nordana also said it will offer export service from Pana...

Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Sperry Marine unit has opened a new ship navigation training center in Charlottesville, Va. The facility will provide a range of navigation courses, including computer-controlled classroom training and a full ship’s bridge simulator, giving students hands-on training under realistic scenarios. Courses include operation, maintenance, trouble-shooting and repair of ...

A fire that erupted on a UPS plane that crashed in Dubai last week, killing both pilots, appears to have broken out in a cargo compartment, according to an Associated Press report citing unnamed sources close to the investigation. Accident investigators are trying to determine which cargo aboard the Boeing 747-400 was located just forward of the starboard wing, where the fire broke out. I...

Cathay Pacific Airways and sister airline Dragonair saw air cargo volume rise 13.1 percent in August to 149,009 tons during the month. The airlines’ load factor increased 0.7 percent to 72.7 percent, while capacity rose 24.5 percent. For the year, tonnage has grown 22 percent compared to a capacity increase of 11.1 percent. "Our cargo traffic in August was not quite as strong as the p...

A shortage of Russian grain due to a devastating drought and wild fires in that country has generated a substantial uptake in North American grain exports via the St. Lawrence Seaway. According to Marine Delivers, a bi-national industry coalition administered by the American Great Lakes Ports Association in the United States and Canada’s Chamber of Marine Commerce, grain shipments through...

Locke The U.S. government reported Thursday that international trade in goods and services for July increased 1.8 percent to $153.3 billion from the June 2010 level, while imports decreased 2.1 percent over the same monthly period to $196.1 billion. “The increase in exports and narrowing of the trade deficit underline how critical exports are to our continued economic growth and why the Co...

Ryder System has appointed Cristina Gallo-Aquino to vice president and controller, succeeding Art A. Garcia, who was recently named executive vice president and chief financial officer of Ryder. Gallo-Aquino serves as the company’s principal accounting officer and is responsible for corporate accounting and planning, internal and external financial reporting, vehicle administration, as we...

Germany-based logistics company Dascher said it has established a new branch dedicated to sea freight in Rotterdam. The branch has been opened with a local joint venture partner, Dutch-based Seacon, and Dascher said it complements the company’s current warehousing, transshipment, and airfreight services in Rotterdam. The sea freight branch will operate from Dascher’s current facility ...

LeanLogistics, a supply chain services company, has opened a sales and service office in Mississauga, Ontario, its first in the Canadian market. “While many Canadian supply chain issues mirror those of the USA, they also require domain-specific expertise,” said Chris Timmer, LeanLogistics’ senior vice president of business development and marketing, in a statement. ...

Ultra Logistics, a third-party logistics provider, has appointed Barry Alexander as vice president of sales. Alexander has more than 20 years of industry experience, including stints with RPS Inc. (now FedEx Ground) and Landstar Systems. ...

The U.S. Grains Council has appointed Rebecca Bratter to director of development, effective October. Bratter will work with the council to develop strategies and manage programs to obtain market access and foster sales of U.S. grain and grain products in specific emerging international markets. She comes to the council from the U.S. Wheat Associates where she served as the director of...

U.S. truck brokers and freight forwarders billed customers 13 percent more and handled 8 percent more shipments in the second quarter than the first, according to a member survey by the Transportation Intermediaries Association. Shipment volumes have increased every quarter on a sequential basis since the TIA began its third-party logistics survey in April 2009. The trade association ...

Lidinsky U.S. Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Richard A. Lidinsky Jr. said he plans to "keep a focus on improving the service contract process." Speaking to members of the Global Shippers' Forum on Monday, Lidinsky said, "service contracts need to be improved if they are to come close to the vision that Congress had for them when it passed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act in 1998. "R...

Mediterranean Shipping Co. said Wednesday it is merging two services to ports in Central America with North America and the Mediterranean, creating a direct Med/U.S. West Coast link. The Swiss liner carrier will merge its Puma service, which links Central America with the U.S. West Coast, and its Panama/Med service, which links Central America to several Mediterranean ports. MSC said ...

Mediterranean Shipping Co. said this week it will add a call at the Port of Pipavav in India on its ISES service between Europe and the Indian Subcontinent. The service, operated in partnership with the Shipping Corp. of India (SCI), calls at two other Indian ports, Nhava Sheva and Mundra, as well as the Sri Lankan transshipment port of Colombo. The current rotation, according to Amer...

Delta Air Lines and the Virgin Blue Group won’t be able to closely coordinate their international operations after the U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday tentatively denied their request for antitrust immunity on joint U.S./Australia service. Virgin Blue Group includes V Australia, Virgin Blue and Pacific Blue Airlines. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, which operates Virgin...

Crowley Maritime Corp. has acquired Islandwide Air and Ocean and entered an agreement with its sister company, Islandwide Logistics, to provide logistics services including warehouse management, inventory management, pick-and-pack and retail time-sensitive delivery services in Puerto Rico. This acquisition and partnership will allow Crowley to offer customers a range of logistics services...

The United Nations World Food Program has deployed GT Nexus’ Internet-based global logistics visibility platform to better manage its vast network of international food deliveries. The platform went live at WFP in 2009 and is operational globally. The WFP operates in 78 countries and employs more than 12,000. Each year, the WFP ships more than 4 million tons of relief supplies to wher...

Kenco has promoted Jeff Tanner to vice president of safety and security for Kenco Management Services. He was Kenco’s director of corporate safety and security. He joined the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based logistics services company in 1999. In his new position, Tanner has responsibility for safety and security across all Kenco’s companies, including Kenco Logistic Services, Kenco Transport...

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission has received 22 license applications and changes for review. The FMC has received non-vessel-operating common carrier license applications from Car Go Worldwide, Compton, Calif. (Lionel Perera, president); Providence Shipping Group, Imperial Beach, Calif. (Jessica A. Drewnowski, vice president of chartering and operations); Sino United Link Corp., Plac...

Maersk Line said this week it will amend the rotations of two transatlantic services in late September and early October. The Danish liner carrier’s TA2 service will from Sept. 29 omit calls to Mobile and switch the order of calls at Miami and Houston. The service has called at Miami before Houston westbound, but the new rotation will be Rotterdam, Felixstowe, Bremerhaven, Newark, Charles...

Maersk Line’s intra-Asia specialist carrier MCC Transport said this week it is adding calls at Manila to two of its services. The Philippine capital will from Sept. 14 be called twice on the IA9 service, which links Taiwan and the Pearl River Delta with Southeast Asia. The service previously only called Manila on one leg, between South China and Malaysia. The new rotation will be Pena...

Maersk Line said this week it will stop accepting 20-foot reefer containers in the Oceania region for transport to a host of destinations to improve availability of its reefer fleet. From Oct. 1, the line will stop accepting such containers in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands for shipments destined for Bulgaria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Croatia, Equatorial Guinea, Georg...

Liner carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co. said it has started a new Caribbean feeder service. The weekly service, to be operated with two 1,500-TEU vessels, will have a rotation of Freeport, San Juan, Rio Haina, Port of Spain and Freeport. ...

The law firm of Reed Smith said Tuesday that Lars Forsberg has joined the firm as a partner in its shipping group. Forsberg joins the firm's New York office from Holland & Knight where he was a partner. “Lars brings a strong maritime background in vessel finance, litigation and other maritime areas that will benefit many of our clients,” said Bob Nicholas, Reed Smith’s global head of ...

The International Air Cargo Association has started offering courses to East African freight forwarders covering supply chain and transportation management, information technology, safety and security. To conduct the course, TIACA has joined with the Federation of East African Freight Forwarders' Association (FEAFFA), which has members in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. ...

Echo Global Logistics, a Chicago-based third-party logistics firm, has named Michael Mobley as senior vice president of operations and Marty Sinicrope as vice president of station sales. Mobley has more than 20 years of operations, supply chain management, and large-scale software implementation experience, having recently served as vice president of supply chain for Omron Healthcare. ...

Shipco Transport, a Hoboken, N.J.-based non-vessel-operating common carrier, has started a weekly full-containerload service from the United States to Afghanistan. The eastbound INDAMEX route serves Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Bagram through Port Qasim, Pakistan. The service, which is provided via liner carrier CMA CGM, will link New York to the Karachi container hub in 32 days. Cargo ...

Non-vessel-operating common carrier Ocean World Lines has opened an office in Singapore in line with its expanding presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Alvin Lee will head the office. He has more than 20 years of experience in global air, ocean, cargo management and regional distribution in the Singapore market, as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region. “We move a ...

Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to rise 16 percent in September over the same month last year, but 2010 has already hit its peak and numbers will decline through the rest of the year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released Tuesday by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. “Retailers have stocked up early on...

Ho Shippers in China and Hong Kong said they have become subject this year to unwarranted surcharges for container damage by liner carriers, according to a report Monday by International Freighting Weekly. The report, based on a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Shippers’ Council, said the size and frequency of such surcharges has markedly increased this year, possibly due to a global cont...

A surprisingly swift recovery for the ocean carrier industry saw the 20 carriers that publicly report their financial earnings increase revenue by 39 percent in the first half of 2010, according to maritime news service Alphaliner. That surge in revenue -- resulting from higher rates and demand from the same period a year ago -- helped the 20 lines to garner a collective 7 percent operati...

Zim said Tuesday it is raising rates on shipments from northern Europe (including Scandinavia) to the Unites States and Canada. The line will raise rates by $250 per 20-foot container and $350 per 40-foot container as of Oct. 1. ...

Liner carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co. last week advised its customers of severe congestion in the Port of Algiers in Algeria due to a strike at the DP World-operated container terminal there. The line said the nearly two-month-old strike has resulted in ships taking as long as one month to be unloaded. MSC said it has started assessing a $180 congestion surcharge from Sept. 1 on shipme...

The Containership Company (TCC), a startup container line that began transpacific service in April, said Friday it will reduce its bunker surcharge by $16 to $22 per container from Oct. 1. The new bunker surcharge rates will be: • $278 per 20-foot container and $348 per 40-foot container, and $392 per 40-foot high-cube container eastbound from Asia to Los Angeles. • $402 per 20-fo...

Agility Logistics won a key victory Thursday in its defense against charges it defrauded the U.S. military of $68 million on a food supply contract in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. A judge in Atlanta agreed the Justice Department failed to properly serve the company with an indictment, according to an Agility statement and news reports. The global supply chain management company argued the...

Schneider Logistics last week said it has arranged to hive off its forwarding and customs brokerage business in the United States and China in a sale to Norbert Dentressangle, a large freight forwarding, road transport and logistics company based in Lyon, France. The planned sale encompasses seven offices in the United States (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta...

Nearly half of all global containership capacity is engaged on services that are currently slow steaming, the maritime consultant Dynamar said Friday in its weekly Dynaliners newsletter. The newsletter said slow steaming has helped carriers integrate more than 2.2 million TEUs of new capacity this year, with 450,000 TEUs of that added capacity -- brought online through new vessel deliveri...

The U.S. Commerce Department will lead a trade mission to Baghdad, Iraq, in October. Francisco Sánchez, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, will lead the mission, which will include about 15 U.S. companies. This will be the first trade mission to Iraq since the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq. Some of the companies included in the mission will be America Cargo T...

Jim Eckler has retired as chief executive officer of SCI Group, but will continue as non-executive vice chairman, according his voice mail message. John Ferguson, vice president for international logistics at Schneider Logistics, will replace Eckler on Sept. 7, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed. Toronto-based SCI is part of the Canada Post group of companies, which includes Puro...

New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has filed charges of price-fixing and collusion against a number of air freight forwarding companies, Reuters reported Thursday. The investigation, announced by the commission Thursday, alleges that subsidiaries of the Deutsche Bahn Group, Kuehne + Nagel, Panalpina, EGL and Geologistics “had colluded to fix the implementation and application of fees for f...

Mediterranean Shipping Co. said it will implement general rate increases in the transatlantic on Oct. 1. MSC said the rate for cargo moving from the United States, Mexico or Canada to Northwest Europe, including the United Kingdom, will increase $200 for 20-foot containers and $300 for 40-foot containers. For cargo moving to Scandinavia or the Baltic, the increase will be $300 for 20-foot...

Member lines of the Canada Transpacific Stabilization Agreement said Wednesday they are lowering the bunker surcharge they assess on shipments from Asia by 5 percent beginning Oct. 1. The lines last increased the surcharge in April. For East Coast ports, the fuel recovery charge will be $551 per 20-foot container, $689 per 40-foot container, $775 per 40-foot high-cube, and $872 per 45...

Maersk is introducing an intra-Europe service it calls Eurolev that will connect North Europe ports with ports in the Mediterranean. Via hubs at Algeciras and Port Said, the new service will combine containers moving within Europe with feeder volumes from around the world. The service will use five 2,500-TEU ships with high reefer capacity operated by Maersk. The rotation is Breme...

Several Mediterranean Shipping Co. services will switch terminals in Port Elizabeth and Port Newark, N.J., this week. On Tuesday, MSC's Golden Gate service to Asia returned to the Port Newark Container Terminal (PNCT) from Maher Terminal in Port Elizabeth. Meanwhile, MSC's USA 1 and 2 services are shifting from PNCT to Maher, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. ...

Maersk said its MCC Intra-Asia 6 (IA-6) Service will extend port coverage to include the port of Hakata, Japan. The extended IA-6 service retains its 28-day round trip with a rotation of Singapore, Danang, Haiphong, Hong Kong, Yantian, Xiamen, Osaka, Kobe, Hakata, Busan, Keelung, Hong Kong, Haiphong, Tanjung Pelepas and Singapore. The first vessel on the revised IA-6 service will be t...

Maersk said its weekly Scanmed service, which connects North European and Mediterranean ports, will begin calling the port of Gemlik in Turkey. The first call is scheduled for October 7 with the vessel EM Athens. Additional information is available here. ...

A congressional watchdog agency said the Commerce Department’s Commercial Service requires better management controls if it’s going to successfully help the White House achieve its goal of doubling U.S. exports in the next five years. The Government Accountability Office found the Commercial Service’s workforce has declined about 14 percent from its peak in 2004 through attrition -- “affe...

Nigeria is to develop a massive free trade zone in Lagos with the help of Chinese investors, Reuters reported Wednesday. The $5 billion project, dubbed the Lekki Free Zone, is a 3,000-hectare site on the eastern fringe of the city. The project is 60 percent held by Chinese investors and 40 percent by the Lagos state government. Among the Chinese investors are the China Railway Constructio...

The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided almost $2 million to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to support the humanitarian logistics operation and the provision of emergency relief supplies for health, shelter, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs. This funding is in addition to the $2.5 million previously provided through the World Food Pr...

Penske Logistics has opened a 110,000-square-foot warehouse in Manaus, Brazil. “Opening a warehouse in Manaus is an important part of Penske’s long-term strategic growth in Brazil,” said Bill Scroggie, managing director for Penske Logistics Brazil, in a statement. “Operating near an important industrial free trade zone, Penske will be able to provide much-needed warehousing services to ma...

Weber Distribution, a Santa Fe Springs, Calif.-based logistics services provider, has named Dan Gayford to vice president client solutions for consumer packaged goods. Gayford joins Weber with 26 years of experience in supply chain sales and operations. He was director of business development for MW Logistics, and also held management positions at Ryder Integrated Logistics, Menlo Worldwi...

The U.S. International Trade Commission has appointed Andrew C. Martin to chief information officer. Martin will serve as the principal information management advisor to the commission and direct all the agency’s information management activities. Previous to this appointment, Martin served as the chief information officer at the Federal Communications Commission. He joined the FCC in...

UTi Worldwide Inc. reported second quarter net profit of $18.9 million compared to $11.8 million in the period the prior year. Revenue for the fiscal quarter ending July 31 was $1.15 billion, 37 percent higher than $840.5 million in the second quarter or last year. The company said the increase was primarily due to higher air freight and ocean freight volumes. "Our improved results we...

Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Richard A. Lidinsky has forwarded a wide-ranging set of recommendations for revising the Shipping Act of 1984 to the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. Lidinsky Included in the recommendations to committee Chairman Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, R-Md., are six proposals: • Bring container and chassis lessors within the ambit of...

Two separate analyst reports issued in the last week suggest the financial sector is conflicted on what it expects from the top Asian container shipping lines in the coming months. On Friday Citi’s Asia Pacific shipping analyst group advised investors to sell shares of every line it analyzes, including Evergreen Line, OOIL (parent of OOCL), Yang Ming, Wan Hai, NOL (parent of APL), China C...

Member lines of the Canada Transpacific Stabilization Agreement said last week they will raise their currency adjustment surcharge to 6 percent beginning Oct. 1. The surcharge will drop to 5 percent in September, after being at 6 percent since May. CTSA member lines are APL, COSCO Container Lines, Evergreen, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, “K” Line, NYK Line, OOCL, Yang Ming and...

Ocean carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co. said last week it will raise rates from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to all Australian ports beginning Sept. 15. The rate increase is $250 per TEU. ...

While export control reform is well underway in the United States, the Obama administration on Tuesday warned exporters that enforcement of the regulations remains a top priority. The reform, announced by the White House on April 20, calls for significant changes to the way the federal government processes export licenses for controlled U.S.-made military and commercial items. The plan al...

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security wants input from the industry to develop an updated set of proposed best practices for how companies may avoid becoming involved in the illicit transit, transshipment and re-export of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. BIS said it’s especially interested in receiving industry feedback regarding new transshipmen...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the nation will export $107.5 billion in agricultural commodities in fiscal year 2010, the second-highest year on record. “This a $3 billion increase from the May forecast, and an $11 billion increase over last year. And agriculture is one of the only major sectors of the American economy with a trade surplus -- expected to be $30.5 billion this yea...

Chief Customer Officer Vincent Gulisano officially left Greatwide Logistics Services on Aug. 21 to become chief executive officer of ParcelPort, a small non-asset-based warehousing, distribution and fulfillment outfit based in Arizona. Gulisano told AmericanShipper.com he wasn’t actively looking for a new job, but that the opportunity to have an ownership stake and lead a company was too ...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday launched a new organizational performance management system. The system, FDA-TRACK, will monitor more than 100 FDA program offices through data from key performance measures established each year. That data will be gathered monthly, analyzed and presented each quarter to FDA’s senior management. The public will also be able to track this da...

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission has received 16 license applications and changes for review. The FMC received non-vessel-operating common carrier license applications from ECM Freight Solutions Corp., Miami (Christian A. Saravia, vice president); “K” Line Logistics (U.S.A.) Valley Stream, N.Y. (Antonio Rodriguez, vice president); Norma’s Cargo Solutions, Miami (Norma A. Pineiro, mana...