Newsletter – March 7, 2024

Freighter operators face margin squeeze
aircargonews.net
Operating freighter aircraft has historically been a business with tight margins, a market environment temporarily interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent airline financial statements again show (more familiar) marginal profitability levels, despite yields that remain 35%-40% up on 2019 figures.
For the two decades ahead of Covid-19, the air cargo industry faced increasing pressure on yields, as a continuous influx of cargo-friendly widebody passenger aircraft combined with steady additions to the global freighter fleet led to sustained growth of global air cargo capacity. Read more here.

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OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

Jensen sees shift of cargoes back to U.S. West Coast ports
ajot.com
Lars Jensen, principal at Vespucci Maritime based in Copenhagen, Denmark, says there is a shift of some East and Gulf Coast cargoes going back to the U.S. West Coast.
Jensen spoke to AJOT at the TPM conference taking place at Long Beach, California produced by S&P Global. Read more here.

Ship hit and damaged in latest vessel attack near Yemen’s coast
ajot.com
A missile strike on a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden resulted in fatalities, marking the first confirmed deaths of crew members since Houthi militants began a wave of attacks against commercial shipping in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.
Two people were killed and six were wounded, according to US officials.  Read more here.

TPM24: Contracts: shippers and forwarders wary of usual 12-month deals
theloadstar.com
The annual transpacific contract tender bartering season is in full swing at the S&P Global TPM24 conference and networking event in Long Beach, California.
The meeting rooms and halls of the vast venue are populated with formal, informal and sounding-out conversations on rates and routings for Asian container imports for the traditional May to April 12-month period. Read more here (login required).

Gemini Cooperation unlikely to expand: Hapag-Lloyd CEO
supplychaindive.com
Hapag Lloyd’s CEO Rolf Habben Jansen does not envision the Gemini Cooperation will need more than two shipping lines to succeed in its mission. When asked if the Gemini Cooperation — whose name means twins — could ever evolve to the “triplet alliance.”
“We didn’t choose it for nothing,” the CEO responded to the question posed at TPM24 by S&P Global in Long Beach, California on Monday. “This is gonna be quite different than the way that some of the other cooperation’s work and if you want to make them work, then to do that with two is probably enough.” Read more here.

TPM24: ‘Frenetic interaction’, insight and advice – it’s a ‘people business’
theloadstar.com
Although the main focus of the S&P Global TPM24 conference and networking event in Long Beach this week is, of course, the transpacific container supply chain, its multinational delegate attendance ensured there was plenty of coverage of other tradelanes.
Notwithstanding TPM’s raison d’etre, company ambassadors from the US and across the globe came to talk and learn more about their industry, confirming an oft-repeated phrase about shipping: that, despite the huge advances in technology, it remains a “people business”. Read more here.

Yang Ming, HMM and ONE urged to collaborate with MSC
splash247.com
Business consultants at AlixPartners have suggested the remaining members of THE Alliance should attempt to form a vessel sharing agreement with Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), the world’s largest containerline, as global liner groupings prepare for a major reshuffle early next year.
MSC is splitting with Maersk in their 2M grouping on the main east-west trades next year, with the latter recently poaching Hapag-Lloyd from THE Alliance to form the Gemini Cooperation next February, with MSC stating its intention to go it alone. Meanwhile, in a bid to quash speculation on liner departures, the members of the Ocean Alliance, the third global grouping, late last month committed to remain together through to 2032, leaving HMM, Yang Ming and Ocean Network Express (ONE) alone in THE Alliance as the smallest grouping.  Read more here.