Newsletter – May 3, 2018

AIR FREIGHT UPDATES

Southwest Flight Diverted After Cabin Window Cracks
source: news.airwise.com
A Southwest Airlines flight to Newark was diverted to Cleveland on Wednesday because of a crack in one of the aircraft’s windows. Read more here.

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

OOCL first quarter volume increases 7.5pc as revenues surge 16 pc
source: shippingazette.com
HONG KONG’s Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) posted a year-on-year 16.3 per cent increase in first quarter revenues to US$1.38 billion on the back of a 7.5 pc spike in total container volume to 1.58 million TEU. Read more here.

NYK and ‘K’ Line back in black, MOL makes a loss in FY 2017
source: shippingazette.
JAPAN’s three largest ocean carriers NYK Line, MOL and “K” Line faced some uneven seas during their fiscal year 2017, which ended March 31.
The latest financial results are the last to be reported after the three firms officially joined their container shipping divisions, including worldwide terminal operations outside of Japan, to create a new operating company called the Ocean Network Express on April 1. Read more here. 

Port Productivity Falls Further as Call Sizes Continue to Grow
source: CIFFA
Global port productivity fell further in 2017, indicating container terminals continue to be challenged in their bid to keep pace with increasing vessel sizes and higher numbers of boxes exchanged on single calls.
Data from the IHS Markit/JOC Port Productivity Database shows a 3% average drop in weighted port productivity globally in 2017 when compared with that in 2016. Port productivity is defined as the number of container moves per hour of time spent by vessels in port.
Most world regions saw a decline in port productivity in 2017 but, at 12%, the decline was steepest in Africa.
Port productivity also declined sharply in Latin America and the Middle East and India in 2017, by 8% in the case of the former and by 7% in the case of the latter. There was a 3% drop in the number of container moves per hour of time spent by vessels in port in northern Europe and North America.
“Southeast Asia was the only region where port productivity increased at a higher rate than call size for a relative net 1% improvement,” said port productivity expert Andy Lane

GROUND AND RAIL FREIGHT UPDATES

FMC investigating final-leg delivery cancellations
source: americanshipper.com
The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission said Monday that is has launched an inquiry into complaints from some U.S. cargo owners that “some ocean carriers are unilaterally changing service contract terms by cancelling the port/container yard to final customer destination leg of the cargo shipment. These cancellations are allegedly due to lack of inland truck availability.” Read more here. 

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Digital delusions
source: lloydsloadinglist.com
Freight transport’s original digital disruptors, the rate portals and booking platforms, have been increasingly pushed into the shadows by the over-powering publicity machines of the digital forwarders like Flexport, Twill, and iContainers. Read more here.

Retailers must focus on what customers want – as opposed to keeping up with the trends of same-day and next-day delivery.
source: theloadstar.co.uk
This was the takeaway from the Logistics is the New Retail session at this year’s Multimodal event in Birmingham yesterday, during which Spiral4’s Andrew Starkey declared: “Delivery does drive retail.” Read more here (login required)