After months of sky-rocketing rates and acutely tight equipment supply, freight forwarder sources said average contract rates for North America, Europe and intra-Asia routes had seen double-digit declines this month. Costs for exports from the ports of Nhava Sheva (JNPT) and Mundra on India’s west...

According to a customer survey conducted by freight rate benchmarking firm Xeneta, 71% of respondents said they would seek to renegotiate long-term contracts if the market changed significantly. More worryingly for ocean carriers, 11% said they would be prepared to breach their contract and look for...

Last September, TS Lines re-entered the Pacific trade with its China Pacific North West 1 service connecting China with Vancouver. The company said at the time it would consider relaunching a service to the US west coast if congestion was resolved. Sea-Lead started its fortnightly AEC service in Mar...

Supply chain stakeholders mitigate disruption through planning and operational measures. However, effective information exchange sits at the heart of smooth-running container shipping, and this is still hampered by manual, paper-based processes, and unstandardised data. Tackling supply chain disrupt...

The carrier said congestion at its Bremerhaven hub had reached “a critical level”, which was “impacting yard density levels and waiting times at the port”. It warned shippers it would start to evacuate long-standing imports to off-dock facilities “if not picked up within reasonable time fr...

INSTC is a 7,200km multimodal, cross-border freight network that links Russia to Central Asia, Iran and India, involving sea, rail and road links. It was initiated by India, Russia and Iran in 2000, with an agreement signed in 2002, but was never used to its full potential. In the original concept, ...

From 8 July, the port will be added to the Taiwanese carrier’s Asia-USEC service, as Wan Hai seeks to become more competitive as a transpacific operator. The port rotation will be Haiphong-Shekou-Kaohsiung-Qingdao-Charleston-Philadelphia-New York-Haiphong. Wan Hai said the reason for adding Philad...

Mr Wieringa said Maersk’s air cargo arm planned to triple in size in the next few years, and would widen its scope to more geographies and verticals. “We will do that by means of organic growth, but we will still keep an eye on the inorganic agenda.” He said: “We used to be very much focused...

Maersk Mr Hausmann said the Danish group had always had subsidiaries playing in the air freight arena: forwarder Damco, now rebranded and re-integrated; and Star Air, basically an ACMI provider mostly to UPS and DHL. Over the past 18 months or so, driven by the cash amassed from the exceptional...

MSC will impose a $1,500 per container GRI for Indian shipments to the US and San Juan (Puerto Rico) from 4 July, as well as a peak season surcharge (PSS) of $500 per box on its India-US connections, sending current average rates further northwards as the supply side looks set to tighten in the week...