The revolutionary impact of the Internet on retail sales is underscored by the volume of holiday shipments U.S. couriers FedEx and UPS plan to deliver. FedEx recently announced that it anticipates its busiest day in history on Dec. 10, when it moves a projected 19 million shipments through its express, ground and freight […]
Frontier Spinning Mills is one of the nation’s largest producers of yarn, and part of a wider textile industry in North Carolina that faces a vexing transportation problem.
Industry seeks more friendly FDA enforcement techniques. By Eric Kulisch US. Customs and Border Protection has several initiatives underway to streamline the entry of shipments that comply with U.S. trade requirements, but for many products that progress is undermined by frequent delays at the border caused by the Food and Drug Administration, according […]
One hundred and fifty million dollars buys a liner carrier a fairly large container ship these days. But it also apparently buys a nice chunk of one of the world’s largest lines itself.
ECS Group, a large general sales and services agent based in Paris, in November acquired three companies in Italy founded by Glauco Martinelli. The firms include Air Transport Consultants Spa (ATC), Airfreight and Data Processing Srl (ADP), and Airline Logistics Srl (AirLog). ATC and ADP are based in Milan. AirLog is a […]
By Eric Johnson Bogatch-Genossar In the container shipping world, there really isn’t a glass ceiling for women to break through. It’s more like trying to break into a Swiss bank vault. Which made the August appointment of Lea Bogatch-Genossar as president of Zim American Integrated Shipping Services, the Israeli container line’s North American subsidiary, all the […]
Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) has won the contract to provide cargo handling for British Airways World Cargo (BAWC) at London’s Gatwick Airport. The new contract, effective Dec. 1, will see about half of the airline’s cargo team at Gatwick transfer to WFS, the world’s largest air cargo handler. The company handles more than […]
Growing losses at Singapore Airlines’ cargo division in the first half of the fiscal year contributed to lower operating profits and a 30 percent decline in net profit for the parent company. Singapore Airlines Cargo’s operating loss reached S$99 million ($81.1 million), compared to S$31 million in 2011. Singapore Airlines said Nov. […]
Boeing next year will convert three 767-300 Extended Range passenger planes to freighters for Guggenheim Aviation Partners, an aircraft leasing company. ST Aerospace Services Co. of Singapore will actually perform the work with engineering oversight by Boeing, the company said. “We believe the 767-300 Boeing Converted Freighter, with performance characteristics similar to […]
By Tom Nightingale, president of sales and marketing, ModusLink Global Solutions Major shippers are incorporating the Panama Canal route into their near-term business plans, East Coast ports are expanding their infrastructure to meet future demand, and we are now close enough to envision what the route’s capacity will be once the canal expansion is […]
The primary reason U.S. Customs established Centers of Excellence and Expertise in the fall of 2011 was to streamline the customs entry process for low-risk shippers in specific industries. A secondary benefit of concentrating import specialists by industry sector has been enhanced enforcement capability for stopping unlawful shipments because the CEEs have better understanding […]
US. and Canadian customs authorities in October launched a collaborative effort to reduce redundant security checks for maritime cargo entering the United States via the Canadian port of Prince Rupert.
Goal to double U.S. exports by 2014, but could be tripped by lackluster 2012. More than halfway through the Obama administration’s efforts to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014, export volumes through the biggest U.S. container ports are stagnating.
eBay leads charge for micro-business trade facilitation. By Eric Kulisch International trade has traditionally been the province of large companies with the resources to scout out suppliers and customers far from home, put multi-modal logistics strategies in place to move their goods across borders at the lowest possible cost and comply with […]
The six commissioners of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on Nov. 7 voted unanimously that domestic producers of photovoltaic solar panels are harmed by similar imports dumped on the U.S. market by government-subsidized Chinese producers. As a result of the ITC’s affirmative determinations, the Commerce Department will issue antidumping and countervailing duty […]
In June, American Shipper chronicled the moves the global trade management software and data provider Amber Road was making to tap into growing mid-market demand for export compliance systems.
In late October, the analyst Gartner forecast that the advent of “big data” would necessitate the creation of 4.4 million IT jobs worldwide, of which 1.9 million would be in the United States. “In addition, every big data-related role in the U.S. will create employment for three people outside of IT, so over […]
Last month, I wrote about all the political bickering affecting port authorities along the U.S. West Coast, particularly the key gateways of Long Beach and Seattle. Turns out that as that issue went to press, the juiciest stuff yet was just being revealed in Oakland. In mid-October, two high-ranking executives, including now former […]
It is often said that humans use less than 10 percent of their brain power. The same could probably be said for the average software system, with users often failing to squeeze every piece of usefulness out of their platforms. And most ocean carriers fall squarely into that hole — sometimes because they […]
While listening to the very informative State of Freight webinar from transportation analyst FTR Associates in early November, there were some interesting statistical conundrums for senior analysts Noel Perry and Larry Gross. Gross first noted the intermodal figures from the Intermodal Association of North American (IANA) for September didn’t jive well with figures […]
