Newsletter – May 12, 2021

AIR FREIGHT UPDATES

Companies in desperate hunt for aircraft to move cargo

freightwaves.com
The airfreight market is so saturated that companies without precommitments, or the stomach to pay premiums, are having difficulty finding aircraft to move their goods. And import cargo keeps coming, on top of record volumes for air and ocean shipping, further straining an air logistics system stretched by a shortage of equipment and airport labor.
Logistics professionals and analysts say capacity is rapidly tightening as more shippers turn to air for cross-border transport, sending air cargo rates sharply higher. The market is already running at peak levels five months before peak season normally starts. Read more here.

London City becomes first airport with digital control tower

aircargoweek.com
London City Airport has become the first major international airport in the world to be fully controlled by a remote digital air traffic control tower, following intensive testing and live trials of the revolutionary technology during lockdown.
All flights on the summer schedule are being guided to land or take off from the heart of the London Docklands business district by air traffic controllers based 115km away at NATS’ air traffic control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, using an ‘enhanced reality’ view supplied by a state-of-the-art 50m digital control tower. Read more here.

Hackers Have Affected US Airline Operations By Blocking A Pipeline

simpleflying.com
As the Colonial Pipeline remains shut following last week’s malware cyberattack, fuel shortages across the East Coast are beginning to impact US airline operations. The first carrier to have altered schedules is American Airlines. Meanwhile, others say that if the jet fuel supply network is not brought back online by the weekend, adjustments may need to be made. Read more here.

CMA CGM continues to expand air cargo network

aircargonews.net
Recently launched CMA CGM Air Cargo has continued to expand its freighter network with the addition of three new destinations.
The airline, owned by Marseille-based shipping group CMA CGM, has added Dubai, Beirut and Istanbul to its existing flights covering Liège, Chicago, New York and Atlanta.
The service between Liege and Dubai will begin on May 19 and the A330F capacity provider hopes to pick up traffic carry cargo originating in Africa and Asia to and from Europe. Read more here.

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

Containerships Increasing Speeds as Rates Continue to Climb

gcaptain.com
A new survey by VesselsValue has found a “significant increase” in the average speed of containerships.
The maritime valuation and market intelligence service said average laden containership speeds had increased by 5.5% since last June to 14.76 knots, and by 8.5% in the larger sectors. Read more here.

Over half of container bookings rolled at some ports

lloydsloadiglist.com
Container shipping service quality is continuing to worsen, with the number of boxes being rolled increasing.
Figures from freight visibility platform project44 shows the percentage of containers missing their scheduled sailings is rising, with some carriers and ports rolling more than half their cargo in April. Read more here.

‘If MSC ends up having more capacity than we do, that’s not the end of the world’: Skou talks up profitability over market share

splash247.com
Next month will mark five years since Søren Skou took the helm at Maersk. Yesterday he gave investors and reporters a glimpse of where he sees the Danish transport giant heading in the coming five years, shrugging off concerns that 2M partner Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) will overtake it in fleet size, focusing instead on profitability and growing Maersk’s land-based logistics side of the business. Read more here.

Hapag-Lloyd rakes in more in Q1 than all of 2020

freightwaves.com
The German shipping line Hapag-Lloyd is not one to bandy about words like “whopping” or “skyrocketed” or “best ever” when describing bottom-line financial results. But the bottom line is Hapag-Lloyd’s first-quarter 2021 earnings before interest and taxes of $1.5 billion equaled the EBIT for all four quarters of 2020.
For Q1 alone, EBIT was up by $1.36 billion — that’s billion with a B — from $176 million in 2020 to the $1.53 billion this year. Read more here.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Counterfeit invoices and fake emails continue to plague our industry, cautions ITIC

ajot.com
ITIC – International Transport Intermediaries Club – has issued a number of warnings on the increasing prevalence of documentation fraud and is reinforcing the message by highlighting a recent case it has handled on behalf of a broker.
The case involved a vessel coming off hire. Under the charter agreement the ship was due to be redelivered with a set quantity of bunkers onboard. The returning charterer put the shipbroker in touch with their usual bunker supplier in China as it made sense for that supplier to provide all the bunkers which would be part funded by the returning charterer and part by the owner. Read more here.