Flexi-Van targets more truckers

Flexi-Van targets more truckers    Flexi-Van is planning a major expansion of its Flexi-Day product, aimed at truckers who need to lease chassis on a short-term basis.
   The company offers the Flexi-Day product out of its service centers in Baltimore; Charleston, S.C.; Houston; and Kenilworth, N.J., where it is headquartered.
   The company plans to roll out Flexi-Day in Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Chicago on Sept. 1.
   'We've leased chassis on a daily basis to truckers for five to seven years in some locations,' says Phil Connors, executive vice president for the company. 'But we are doing so on a much broader scope.'
   The Flexi-Day product has a Web-based interface that simplifies the process of leasing truck chassis where truckers can register with the company, read terms and conditions and handle practical matters such as insurance and credit.
   Connors said the decision to create Flexi-Day was motivated by the increasingly frequent announcements that ocean carriers would no longer routinely provide chassis for free to draymen moving containers booked for port-to-port moves.
   Atlantic Container Line, CMA CGM, OOCL, NYK, Evergreen and Maersk have all said they will no longer routinely provide free chassis in either some ports or nationally.
   'This clearly presents market opportunities, and we want to help provide truckers with their equipment needs,' Connors said.
   Flexi-Day will have a per diem charge of about $11 to $14 a day for a chassis, depending on the market. Connors said the company is willing to negotiate terms with truckers who may want to lease a number of chassis or lease equipment for longer periods of time.
   With a fleet of about 160,000 chassis, most for international containers, Flexi-Van is the second-largest U.S. chassis lessor. The largest is TRAC Intermodal (formerly Seacastle Chassis), which has about 240,000 chassis. A 2008 filing by Seacastle estimated there were 890,000 chassis worth in excess of $6 billion in the United States with 760,000 chassis for 20-, 40- or 45-foot marine containers and 130,000 chassis for 48- and 53-foot domestic containers.
   TRAC unveiled its own short-term lease program earlier this month (see the September issue of American Shipper) and the world's largest container shipping company Maersk began renting chassis to truckers last year through a newly created subsidiary called Direct ChassisLink.
   Flexi-Van is a private company owned by David Murdock, owner of Dole Foods and Castle and Cooke.
   Flexi-Van is both a major operator of neutral chassis pools where it leases its own equipment, and a manager of cooperative pools where steamship lines contribute their own chassis. It also manages 'hybrid pools,' which combine both Flexi-Van and carrier equipment.
   It manages two cooperative pools in the Gulf and South Atlantic region for Consolidated Chassis Management, the chassis pool company set up by the Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association (OCEMA), a group of about 20 steamship lines.
   With the economic recovery this year, chassis lessors have been scrambling to keep up with the sudden rise in demand, taking chassis out of layup, replacing tires, and putting chassis into good working order.
   A former president of Maersk's drayage subsidiary Bridge Terminal Transport, Connors said many shipping executives have wanted the U.S. industry to follow the same practice as in other countries where trucking companies rather than steamship lines routinely provide chassis.
   Roadability rules of the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration may be another factor influencing some ocean carriers to look at exiting or reducing their involvement in the chassis business.
   Connors said there are many issues to be worked out if carriers decide to exit or reduce their involvement in the chassis business, including what they will do with their owned fleets of chassis.
   While some truckers will choose to buy chassis, he believes many will want to lease equipment, in part because it gives them more flexibility as demand for equipment rises and falls.
   'I could envision that in several years you will have chassis pools, but instead of shipping companies being the members, they will be trucking companies,' he said. ' Chris Dupin