Category Archives: International

The transnational project “South Baltic Transport Loops” (SBTL), supported by the European Union and initially developed by Hamburg Port Consulting (HPC) recently held its closing conference in Copenhagen. Aimed at assisting in the development of smaller and medium-sized ports in the region, a number of significant new sea connections have resulted. The main focus of the partners in the project, the ports of Elblag, Karlshamn, Mukran and Roenne, and the Klaipeda Shipping Research Centre is developing and implementing new regular services and ship connections for container, bulk and general cargo transport, and ferry services. Attention is also being placed on improving the intermodal hinterland connections of the ports. Representatives of the project partners presented their results at the closing conference in Copenhagen on 28 September. HPC developed the project in 2016, applied for funding and has been coordinating it since 2018. Dr Olaf Zeike, Senior Consultant at HPC and the project manager in charge, takes positive stock: “With the activities promoted by the SBTL project, the course has been set for sustainable development of the partner ports in the southern Baltic Sea region. Despite Corona-related delays, we can be proud of the team effort that has been achieved across the countries involved in the project.” The list of innovations and improvements is impressive

GEODIS announced the deployment of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) from Geek+, a global technology company specialized in smart logistics through advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), at its Yuen Long Warehouse Distribution Centre (YLDC) in Hong Kong, SAR China. The YLDC will be provided with an exclusive AMR operating area with QR coding to guide automated operations. The smart facility underlines GEODIS’ digital-first outlook to future operations. Onno Boots, Regional President & CEO, Asia Pacific said: “Our investments in this AI-driven automation system brings substantial value to GEODIS’ eCommerce and retail customers by addressing some of the key challenges they face today. These solutions not only bring long-term cost-savings, operational efficiencies, and safety, but also enable us to maintain high-quality control standards while providing customers greater speed and flexibility of movement of goods.”

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released September 2021 data for global air cargo markets showing that demand continued to be well above pre-crisis levels and that capacity constraints persist. As comparisons between 2021 and 2020 monthly results are distorted by the extraordinary impact of COVID-19, unless otherwise noted, all comparisons below are to September 2019 which followed a normal demand pattern. • Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs*), was up 9.1% compared to September 2019 (9.4% for international operations). • Capacity remains constrained at 8.9% below pre-COVID-19 levels (September 2019) (-12% for international operations). “Air cargo demand grew 9.1% in September compared to pre-COVID levels. There is a benefit from supply chain congestion as manufacturers turn to air transport for speed. But severe capacity constraints continue to limit the ability of air cargo to absorb extra demand. If not addressed, bottlenecks in the supply chain will slow the economic recovery from COVID-19. Governments must act to relieve pressure on global supply chains and improve their overall resilience,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

CEVA Logistics has further cemented its role as a leading player in the Southeast Asia wine and spirits sector after winning a three-year contract with Diageo to handle warehousing and value-added services in the Philippines. Diageo is one of the world’s largest alcoholic beverage producers, and the new deal builds on an existing relationship between the companies over the last two years with CEVA responsible for handling Diageo’s air and ocean import brokerage requirements. The contract further positions CEVA Logistics as the only 3PL serving the Top 3 global wine and spirits companies with transport and warehousing services in the Philippines. Under the terms of the contract, Diageo will become one of the first clients at the soon-to-be-completed CEVA Logistics Ruhale Taguig warehouse in southeast Manila. CEVA will manage full distribution center operations for Diageo’s range of products, including a temperature-controlled section for domestic distribution throughout the Philippines. CEVA will also provide tax stamping and labelling of more than four million bottles each year. With its extensive experience of operating with leading players across the beverage industry, CEVA will deliver full transparency to the customer to enable improved monitoring of the entire operation through its warehouse management software which will be integrated with Diageo’s enterprise resource planning platform.

The Application Programming Interface (API) solution for Air Canada Cargo customers is live now. By being directly integrated with Air Canada Cargo, customers will be able to reduce the amount of time taken to complete a booking or AWB, resulting in improved efficiency. This API solution will improve efficiency for customers by manual interactions such as quoting, booking, scheduling, and track and trace requests. It will also improve connectivity and collaboration, as well as the overall customer experience by connecting different systems and processes to offer an enhanced booking flow. “We are thrilled to implement this important technology for Air Canada Cargo and are excited about the role it will play in advancing the industry toward the digitization of processes, and indeed our business as a whole. This will be beneficial for Air Canada Cargo’s valued customers who will be able to take advantage of the many benefits this API will provide,” said Matthieu Casey, senior director, Global Sales and Revenue Optimization.

Turkish Airlines’ brand, Turkish Cargo, recently added Macau to the list, strengthening its flight network. After Hong Kong, Macau, one of the economic centers of China, will be among its destinations served with direct cargo flights. The number of direct cargo flights has reached 97 including Macau starting today on November 1, 2021. Located in the Guangdong province of China; Macau is an important center in terms of tourism and finance and hosts market leaders of sectors such as high technology, e-commerce, electronics and textiles. Turkish Cargo aims to strengthen the air cargo bridge it has established between Europe and the Far East with the reliable, fast and direct air transportation it offers to logistics service providers with Airbus A330F type wide-body cargo aircraft on ISL-ALA-MFM-ALA-ISL (Istanbul Ataturk Airport, Almaty International Airport, Macau International Airport, Almaty International Airport, Istanbul Ataturk Airport) route.

Hactl has returned to full manning and normal operations, following the reporting on October 7th of a single case of COVID-19 in the company’s ramp handling team, which led to the quarantining of his close work contacts by Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection. All quarantined staff subsequently tested negative, have now been released from the quarantine centre and have returned home. The manpower shortage resulting from the quarantine affected around 20% of flights but – despite the additional impact on all airport operations of two typhoons on October 9th and 13th – the situation was progressively brought under control through increased overtime, re-scheduling of some flights, re-deployment of other ramp-trained Hactl staff and subcontracting of some duties to other operators. Less than 5% of Hactl’s workforce were affected, and over 80% of flights were handled within normal time frames. Hactl’s terminal operations were not affected. There is no truth in some reports of two-three day delays.

American Airlines Cargo further enhances its transatlantic services for cargo customers this winter with direct service from London Heathrow (LHR) to nine key U.S. cities starting in November onward. The airline will operate doubly daily service from LHR to John. F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), and daily service to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Miami International Airport (MIA), Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) and Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) all starting in November. Additionally, German customers will see a special limited-time service in November between Frankfurt Airport (FRA) and CLT to connect Germany to the important production and consumption centers in the U.S. South East. “These winter services are tremendous news for American Airlines customers in the UK and Europe where capacity to the U.S. and beyond has proved to be very tight over the last eighteen months,” says Tim Isik, Sales Director – EMEA & APAC for American Airlines Cargo.

Blue Dart Express Limited, declared its financial results for the quarter ended September 30 2021, at its Board Meeting held in Mumbai. The company posted ₹895 million profit after tax (previous year corresponding quarter was at ₹414 million) for the quarter ended September 30, 2021; Revenue from operations for the quarter ended September 30, 2021 stood at ₹11,236 million. Revenue from operations for the half year ended September 30, 2021 stood at ₹19,884 million and profit after tax at ₹1,189 million. Balfour Manuel, Managing Director, Blue Dart says, “The company witnessed strong pull back in demand during the quarter as wave II of pandemic started slowing down. All economic indicators like GDP growth, Index for Industrial Production, GST collections etc. reflected strong recovery. Growth during the quarter is testimony to heightened business activities of key industrial verticals.”

Singapore’s new mega-port is just months away from full operations, but it has opened its storage area early to help alleviate the supply chain bottlenecks plaguing container shipping. Congestion has caused ships to arrive late, resulting in logjams of containers in major ports around the globe. Ship arrivals at Singapore are now 7.5 days late, on average, after schedule reliability fell to an all-time low of 33.6% in August, although this has since improved to 40%. Senior minister of state for transport Chee Hong Tat said that following the Ever Given grounding, a ship which skipped a port call in the Persian Gulf came to Singapore, where it unloaded 2,700 containers originally bound for the Gulf. The containers were stored before being reloaded onto ships sailing to the intended destination. Chee said, “In doing so, [port operator] PSA enabled the shipping line to skip a port and catch up on its schedule, after a two-week diversion around the Cape of Good Hope.”