Category: Shipping

Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd, and Jeremy Nixon, CEO of ONE, have been elected co-chairs of the board of directors of the World Shipping Council (WSC).

The board of directors also announced this week it had welcomed Matson Navigation and X-Press Feeders as new WSC members.

Jansen and Nixon have begun serving a two-year term as co-chairs. They succeeded Ron Widdows, who had served as the WSC chairman for more than a decade and previously announced his intention to step down once a successor was elected.

“WSC today is the unified voice of liner shipping and covers a wide range of industry topics, engaging with governments and organizations all over the world. We expect that to only expand as we head into the future and WSC continues its work to shape the future growth of a socially responsible, environmentally sustainable, safe and secure shipping industry,” Nixon said.

John Butler, president and CEO of the Washington-headquartered WSC, welcomed Matson Navigation and X-Press Feeders to the organization.

“Expanding our membership broadens our perspective when representing the liner sector and we look forward to participation from Matson and X-Press Feeders’ representatives,” Butler said.

Both companies elected to appoint representatives to WSC’s board of directors. Matt Cox, Matson’s chairman and CEO, and Tim Hartnoll, executive chairman of X-Press Feeders, have joined the WSC board.

Hyliion

Hyliion has hired Jose Oxholm as vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer.

Texas-headquartered Hyliion, which offers electrified powertrain solutions for Class 8 commercial vehicles, said Oxholm will be responsible for the company’s legal and compliance functions.

Oxholm has more than 20 years of automotive and transportation experience and has held top management positions at LoJack, Ford Motor, Goodyear and Meritor, Hyliion said.

“Jose is a seasoned leader whose deep industry experience will be a valuable asset as we continue to grow and make progress toward our commercialization strategy,” said Thomas Healy, founder and CEO of Hyliion.

Davies Turner 

Davies Turner has promoted Tony Cole to head of ocean.

Cole is tasked with leading Davies Turner’s ocean freight-forwarding services.

He replaced Kieron Larkin, who is leading a strategic review of the company’s computer systems and software that will underpin all its freight-forwarding services. 

Cole joined U.K.-based Davies Turner in 1990 as ocean import manager. While head of supply chain services, he was instrumental in the launch and development of Davies Turner’s direct weekly Express China Rail service in 2018.

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Click for more American Shipper/FreightWaves stories by Senior Editor Kim Link-Wills.

The Baltic Exchange, a centuries-old provider of maritime market information, has turned its attention to the sky by entering a partnership with air cargo pricing publisher TAC Index.

The London-based exchange will generate six outbound airfreight indices and 17 individual destinations, which will be offered under the Baltic Air Freight Index (BAI). TAC, based in Hong Kong, will keep these indices current.

The BEI indices will be priced in U.S. dollars per kilogram of freight and cover the key air hubs of London, Hong Kong, Chicago, Shanghai, Singapore and Frankfurt, Germany, to main international import regions, the exchange said.

This activity will be operated by Baltic Exchange Information Services Ltd., with TAC Index serving as the “calculating agent.”

Rates are provided to TAC by large international freight forwarders and published each Monday by the Baltic Exchange. The indices are available on the exchange’s website, www.balticexchange.com, to subscribers to the BAI data.

“This would provide the air cargo industry with new ways of managing its freight rate risk and potentially bring in new market participants,” said Baltic Exchange Chief Executive Mark Jackson in a statement.

Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.

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European third-party logistics services provider Geodis has expanded its position in U.S. e-commerce by recently integrating its system with online marketplaces Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

“As online shopping has accelerated, Geodis is constantly strengthening and evolving our IT solutions to provide the brands we serve with easy, efficient and effective ways to get their products to consumers,” said Pal Narayanan, the company’s chief information officer in the Americas.

The 3PL’s integration with Shopify allows it to fulfill online orders and provide real-time data between the digital marketplace and supply chain services.

The integration with Amazon allows Geodis to provide “drop shipping” for customers. “This enables brands to sell products through Amazon while continuing to utilize Geodis as its logistics partner to fulfill orders and ship directly to the end customer,” Geodis said.

Geodis this year has expanded its logistics services for e-commerce shippers, realizing the uptick in online orders and deliveries of shipments that have been accelerated by ongoing coronavirus pandemic social distancing requirements.

In September, the 3PL introduced MyParcel, a four-to-six-day, end-to-end transport service for online purchases between U.S. retailers and European customers. The service’s all-in rate is promoted as cheaper than two-to-three-day international express and closer to postal rates, without the 8-to-12-day or longer transits.

Geodis will also hire up to 8,000 seasonal employees in the U.S. to handle an anticipated surge in freight volumes due to online shopping during the end-of-year holidays. The company cited a recent eMarketer report that forecasts e-commerce shipments will increase 18% to $709.78 billion this year.

Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.

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Dachser USA has established desks of logistics professionals to assist retailers with weathering changes in how customers purchase holiday items during the coronavirus pandemic and the disrupted supply chain.

The freight forwarder noted that ocean freight capacity is tightening and landside transport gridlock is already on the horizon as the U.S. heads toward the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping period at the end of November.

“This is a make-or-break time for some of our customers,” said Guido Gries, Dachser America’s managing director, in a statement. “Capacity issues across the supply chain and last-mile challenges are creating implications that could seriously impact delivery dates.”

Gries said the new customer service desks, which are located in Atlanta and Los Angeles, are in “constant contact with customers and is working tirelessly to develop solutions to tackle drayage capacity, transit delays, unloading issues and potential demurrage charges.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged many U.S. retailers to switch from traditional in-store purchases to online orders and deliveries.

According to Salesforce’s 2020 forecast, global online sales are expected to increase 30% year-over-year to $840 billion this holiday season, compared to 8% growth in 2019.

“Retailer promotions are starting earlier than ever before in an effort to mitigate the risk of last-minute crowds in the stores,” Dachser USA said. “To adhere to pandemic guidelines, retailers are adopting new approaches by offering curbside pickups, limiting the number of customers in stores, encouraging online shopping, as well as not opening doors on Thanksgiving Day.”

Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.

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Rinaldo Vels saw a niche in the airfreight industry by offering couriers, truckers, e-commerce services and startup freight forwarders access to airline cargo capacity as a wholesaler.

Wholesalers traditionally consolidate airfreight shipments for forwarders at lower rates than if they deal directly with the airlines and secure access to the most efficient overseas flights.

One of the biggest target customers for the newly formed, Amsterdam-based Wholesale by Vels are forwarders without their International Air Transport Association (IATA) licenses.

“Forwarders who are not IATA licensed are not allowed to book directly with the airlines,” Vels told American Shipper. “Therefore, we provide these companies the option to make use of our services and [IATA] license, where we provide full transparency about the airfreight costs.”

Vels, a 20-plus-year airfreight veteran in the Netherlands, said the process to incorporate the company, including receiving its IATA accreditation, took more time than expected due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company currently has a staff of three and an automated platform to manage its service.

Wholesale by Vels will initially provide outbound services from the Amsterdam airport to destinations in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the U.S. and inbound capacity from Asia-Pacific and the U.S.

“Our goal [in the beginning] is to establish a few key routes to and from the U.S. in cooperation with our partners,” Vels said.

While Wholesale by Vels manages consolidations under its own IATA license, it will work with appointed cargo-handling agents to provide physical cargo handling, including labeling, weighing and conducting dimensional checks. Vels said his company will also handle dangerous goods, if requested.

“The future of air cargo is clearly digital, but we have a new generation of companies and staff whose digital competence and capabilities are not matched by practical knowledge and experience. To be successful, you need both,” he said.

The ongoing global pandemic in many trade routes made access to airfreight capacity costly and limited. Yet Wholesale by Vels has pulled through with securing airfreight capacity for some of its large forwarder clients. “We operated three full charters out of China, even before we received our IATA accreditation,” Vels said.

“Airlines are open to the wholesale business, which in our case, it is all about the relationships we have with the airlines at Amsterdam airport,” he said. “We have a serious amount of different airlines with which we have long-lasting, personal relationships.”

Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.

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Air Transport Services Group (NASDAQ: ATSG) saw its adjusted pretax earnings for the third quarter increase 15% to $125.5 million based on increased demand for leases of its cargo aircraft.

“In the third quarter, ATSG’s businesses continued to deliver better than expected results, aided by a quarterly record seven deployments of [Boeing] 767 freighter aircraft to its aircraft leasing customers, and by seizing opportunities for charter and cargo ACMI operations to supplement the capacity of our customers,” said President and CEO Rich Corrado in a statement on Thursday.

ATSG’s adjusted earnings rose 48% to $31.8 million. The adjusted per-share earnings were 44 cents, up from 31 cents in 2019.

The Wilmington, Ohio-based company’s biggest cargo airline customers include UPS (NYSE: UPS), DHL (OTCMKTS: DPSGY), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), NAC, Amerijet and Cargojet. 

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, ATSG’s capital spending through the first nine months totaled $394.3 million, up 17%, which included expenditures of $273.4 million for the purchase of eight 767 freighters in the first nine months of 2020, and for freighter modifications.

Cargo airline activities helped to offset ATSG’s grounded passenger aircraft fleet due to COVID-19 government travel restrictions.

“We will achieve our goal of delivering a record 12 767-300 freighters in 2020 to external customers, including four in the fourth quarter, while also re-leasing three 767-200s to customers in Kenya, Malaysia and Mexico,” Corrado said.

Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.

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Third-party logistics giant DSV Panalpina (OTCMKTS: DSDVY) reported on Thursday a pretax operating profit of 2.7 billion Danish kroner (DKK) ($428 million) for the third quarter, up from DKK 1.78 billion ($280 million) for the same period last year and despite the supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Market conditions have been better than anticipated across most of our markets, and at the same time we benefit from efficient cost management,” said Jens Bjørn Andersen, DSV Panalpina Group CEO, in a statement.

DSV Panalpina said the negative impacts from COVID-19 began easing off during Q3, and it estimated with the exception of the bump in airfreight that the rest of its business activities are now “close to the level in the same period last year.”

“Since the beginning of the crisis, all our business units have been able to operate through lockdowns and other restrictions,” the Danish 3PL said. “So far, the financial impact from the crisis has been less severe than we originally anticipated.”

Overall, DSV Panalpina reported Q3 revenue of DKK 28.1 billion ($4.4 billion), compared to DKK 24.5 billion ($3.85 billion) for the same quarterly period last year. Gross profit for the company during Q3 was DKK 7.25 billion ($1.14 billion), compared to DKK 6.27 billion ($986 million) for the same period in 2019.

DSV Panalpina’s pretax operating profit year-to-date for 2020 is DKK 6.9 billion ($1.08 billion), compared to DKK 4.87 billion ($765 million) for the same year-to-date period last year. Based on its current financial performance and market conditions, the company anticipates a pretax operating profit of DKK 9.25 billion ($1.45 billion) by year’s end.

DSV Panalpina said it continues to benefit from its $5 billion acquisition of Panalpina in August 2019, particularly in its Air & Sea business.

“We are happy to announce that all material aspects of the Panalpina integration have now been successfully completed and we can now intensify the focus on organic growth,” Andersen said.

In other news, DSV Panalpina announced Wednesday that it acquired third-party logistics service provider Prime Cargo from Mitsui-Soko Group of Japan.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, however, DSV Panalpina took control of Prime Cargo’s activities in Denmark, Poland and China.

DSV Panalpina said it has been observing Prime Cargo for the past several years, particularly its business specialty in e-commerce and fashion retail from China. “The company is a perfect match for DSV Panalpina’s Danish Solutions division and Air & Sea division,” DSV Panalpina said.

Prime Cargo Managing Director Morten Høilund will become part of DSV Panalpina.

The transaction is expected to be completed within two to three months subject to customary conditions, including clearance by applicable competition authorities, the company said.

Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.

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Even as technology percolates within supply chains, logistics operations continue to be fraught with visibility issues. This problem stems from logistics stakeholders struggling to trust their partners both upstream and downstream in the value chain, jeopardizing data interconnectivity and the resulting efficiency gain.

Blockchain as a technology can be a powerful tool to infuse trust into a value chain, especially in situations that require transactions to be made based on data arising from different stakeholders in the network. FreightWaves spoke with executives from Data Gumbo, a blockchain-based smart contract platform, to understand how blockchain can be leveraged across the logistics industry to ensure seamless transactions. 

“At Data Gumbo, we automate the execution of contracts between buyers and sellers using a combination of data held by those parties and other third parties to confirm those transactions have occurred. Our platform then automatically calculates the appropriate payments and pushes that information back in a pre-reconciled way to the parties’ systems of record — be that SAP, Oracle or QuickBooks,” said William Fox, chief product officer at Data Gumbo. 

Data Gumbo works in the oil and gas logistics space, where it helps enforce trust into transactions incurred around the trucking of produced water that is hauled from oil wells to disposal facilities. Fox explained that the company frequently heard from trucking companies that complain of their payments getting delayed, as the usual 30-day payment terms get extended to over 45 days due to invoices getting disputed and kicked around before being paid. 

A blockchain network serves to eliminate such disputes, while also reducing massive physical paper documentation that translates into saved operational costs. “Savings can be looked at in other ways. For instance, in the diesel context, there are 3-6 cents per gallon of saved costs on our platform. Getting paid on time reduces the interest charge of financing your customer, who’s not paying fast enough and less administration, middleware and subscription software that needs to be paid from your pocket,” said Fox. 

To enable such transactions through the blockchain network, it is crucial for data that enters the system to be standardized across the value chain. Since it is not feasible to ask every stakeholder in the trucking supply chain to be compliant with data standards, Data Gumbo looks to bridge the gap by acting as a standardized aggregator. 

“We utilize standards where they’re available. But we map our data to a standard model within our system. In essence, we aren’t trying to get the industry to standardize but use our internal model to map data,” said Andrew Bruce, the CEO of Data Gumbo. “This relieves companies of the burden to standardize while getting on the network.”

Data Gumbo’s quest to create seamless trusted transactions centers around ensuring the data it uses is reliable and with little margin of error. Within the blockchain consortium, the margin of error is capped at 1.6% for transactions to remain automated between two parties, with a larger margin of error in transactions needing manual intervention before approval.

“This way, companies become highly interested in data. This is because there is a high incentive in making sure the data quality is high, and data is accurate,” said Bruce. 

Data Gumbo recently partnered with Texas Alliance of Energy Producers to deploy its interconnected blockchain network to its members, powering smart contracts that help stakeholders cut operational costs and increase efficiencies in commercial transactions. By ensuring a trusted environment for data sharing, Data Gumbo has enabled energy producers to capture the value and mitigate risk via better and informed decisions.