Newsletter – March 17, 2021

AIR FREIGHT UPDATES

Double Decker Airplane Seat Achieves 700% Of Crowdfunding Goal

simpleflying.com
The revolutionary double-decker airplane seat concept from Zephyr Aerospace successfully completed its crowdfunding mission, finishing up with more than 700% of its initial goal amount. The seat, which promises affordable lie flat comfort in the economy cabin, can now move on to the next stages of refinement and certification for use. Read more here.

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

Shipping congestion at Los Angeles ports shows signs of easing

ajot.com
Shipping congestion outside the biggest U.S. gateway for imports from Asia showed signs of easing over the past week as dockworkers made progress reducing by almost half a backlog that peaked at 40 vessels six weeks ago.
Twenty-two container ships were waiting to offload at the adjacent ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles as of Sunday, compared with 29 a week earlier, according to officials who monitor marine traffic in Southern California’s San Pedro Bay. Thirteen more are scheduled to arrive over the next three days, with nine of those set to drop anchor. Read more here.

Ongoing US ocean delays to keep air charter operations busy

aircargonews.net
Delays to container shipping supply chains in the US, which are resulting in increased air cargo charter flights, could continue into the summer, according to Tom Pelliccio, executive vice president international at freight forwarder Pilot Freight Services (PFS).
Pelliccio said that ocean shipping services are currently facing delays of around five to seven days departing from China and Southeast Asia and multiple day delays offloading at US west coast and east coast ports. Read more here.

Ordering spree shuffles liner rankings

splash247.com
The spate of boxships ordered over the past six months is seeing radical shifts in the global liner rankings. When including their orderbooks, Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) is now on track to overhaul Maersk as the world’s largest liner, while France’s CMA CGM is on schedule to reclaim third spot from China’s Cosco.
MSC became the world’s second largest carrier in 2004, and since then, it and Maersk have continued to top the global ranking table compiled by Alphaliner, something Maersk has topped for more than a quarter of a century. Read more here.

ONE Apus finally departs from Kobe

splash247.com
After 98 days at a slice of quayside in Kobe, the 14,000 teu ONE Apus departed today, bound once again for California.
The magenta-hulled vessel was this winter’s most high profile box spill case, in a season where many ships lost cargoes overboard in the Pacific. Read more here.

CANADA BUSINESS – GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Importing Food into Canada: SFC Licence Now Required

inspection.canada.ca
As of yesterday, food import transactions will automatically be rejected unless a valid Safe Food for Canadians (SFC) licence is entered in the Integrated Import Declaration (IID).
Importers must obtain an SFC licence before presenting their shipments at the border. If a transaction is rejected, the SFC licence holder may experience delays and have their related food shipment(s) held at the border until the error is addressed and the import transaction is resubmitted.
For more information, refer to Importing food into Canada with an SFC licence.

Canadian factories find themselves at competitive disadvantage thanks to lagging vaccination rate

financialpost.com
Canadian automation company Promation had been banking on a weaker currency to help it win a new U.S. contract, but a slower pace of vaccinations in Canada could erase that competitive edge, President Darryl Spector said.
Pandemic travel restrictions make it harder for Promation’s technicians to travel across the border to service and repair plant equipment, a drawback when competing against an increasingly vaccinated U.S. workforce. Read more here.

Border won’t open any time soon, Trudeau says

insidelogistics.ca
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waved away suggestions Monday that Canada is prepared to explore reopening its shared border with the United States any time soon.
Canadians are looking forward to the day regular cross-border travel “eventually” resumes, Trudeau told a news conference in Montreal – his first public appearance outside Ottawa in recent memory.
But while that day will inevitably arrive, it’s not imminent as long as Covid-19 continues to pose a serious risk to public health, he suggested.
“We’re all eager to be able to travel again,” Trudeau said. Read more here.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS- GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Shift in peak shipping periods with booming e-commerce: TPM21

seanews.com.tr
CHANGES in buying patterns in the US that may be permanent as a result of soaring e-commerce volumes amid the Covid-19 that has affected the timings of shipments could shift the traditional peak import periods.
This was the message at a recent session of the JOC’s virtual TPM21 conference from industry veteran, Ron Widdows, CEO of FlexiVan Leasing, an intermodal chassis-owning specialist based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Read more here.