NOL chief presses liner communication

NOL chief presses liner communication

Widdows

   Ron Widdows, group president and chief executive officer of NOL, said the industry can do a much better job at sharing information.
   “If we’re smart about that, we can make better decisions, and that has to be better not just for our industry but the economy of the United States,” Widdows told a group of liner carrier and shipper executives at a dinner in Long Beach, Calif., Thursday evening. “The more industry can be transparent with our customers the better our industry can be.”
   Widdows made his remarks upon receiving the Containerization & Intermodal Institute’s Connie Award along with Jon Hemingway, CEO of SSA Marine.
   While chairman two liner carrier discussion agreements — the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement and Westbound Transpacific Stabilization Agreement — Widdows encouraged the practice of regularly inviting 30 to 40 shippers to discuss with the carriers their problems and concerns related to service, infrastructure, contract complexity and surcharges. In 2007, these informal forums began meeting two to three times a year at East and West coast cities and Hong Kong.
   At the Transpacific Maritime Conference in March, the TSA and WTSA formalized the shipper meetings into eastbound and westbound advisory councils. Each council comprises about 15 large shipper representatives.
   “We first started engaging the advisory councils through conference calls, and have now moved to face-to-face meetings,” Widdows told American Shipper on the side.
   The WTSA held its first shipper advisory council meeting two weeks ago in Seattle. The TSA-related council will meet soon. It’s expected that both shipper advisories will hold their meetings quarterly, Widdows said.
   He noted that recently proposed legislation on Capitol Hill includes language to mandate advisory councils between shippers and carriers. “We have the ability to do this already without being told” by Congress, he said.
   Individually, APL this year has started publishing service reliability data which it makes publicly available. “Shippers should demand that type of information from people they’re doing business with. It’s no secret,” Widdows said. ' Chris Gillis