Asia | US news digest. 2 July
Up in the sky: rates and air freight development.
As rates and volumes rise, the air market expects a relatively healthy peak season thanks to both e-commerce and stock replenishment driving demand especially in such key tradelanes like the US. In the light of the positive forecasts, Malaysia’s Airasia has made a bold step into the market with the purchase of its first 737-800F. In fact, air freight is becoming a saving grace in the aftermath of ports’ congestion — some ocean freight shipments are already “converting” to air due to the on-going logistics difficulties. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has signed a long-term ground lease agreement with Aeroterm for the development of a $145 million cargo facility at New York's JFK International Airport.
Will the ones who did not get on their vessels use the drones? Pun intended. Hellmann Worldwide Logistics is looking to launch a pioneering new transport service with unmanned aerial vehicles developer Dronamics to work together to develop the initial routes that they will be piloting for customers.
Trains are still among the traditional alternatives. Hupac is setting up a new cross-border liquid cargo service between Europe and China. The rail freight line is specifically designed for the chemical industry in Europe and runs to Lanzhou via Belarus-Russia-Kazakhstan.
Chinese government reports to have addressed the problem of tight container shipping capacity by boosting the availability of empty boxes and vigorously raising production of new units. However, the schedule reliability across the world has been disrupted throughout the year, which pushes the companies to adjust even more stoutly, as experts do not foresee a lot of improvement soon. Hence, Maersk will launch two new weekly services on the transpacific in August to operate outside its 2M alliance amid to coincide with the incoming peak surge.
Among the steps required to encourage return to normality, Yantian’s Port Authority is going to increase the number of laden containers allowed to enter the port by truck to 9,000 per day to speed up the box recovery. However, the visible results may take up to one month to appear. On the bright side it has been noted that carriers’ quick reaction to the Yantian crisis (by introducing hundreds of vessel omissions) has managed to prevent the fallout from bursting into a broader logistics chaos.
Meanwhile, average D&D fees at the world’s top 20 container ports have gone up 104% compared to a year ago, facing average fees of $2,638 two weeks after discharge, compared with just $132 at Busan.
Due to the spread of the Delta variant, multiple Asian countries that produce U.S. containerized imports are seeing high infection rates that will push more challenges for container supply chain. In China, restrictions at the Port of Yantian in the first three weeks of June will reverberate across U.S. import supply chains for at least another month as well.
Government aid seems to be an inevitable step. The Port of Savannah got a boost from the federal government, nearly $47 million federal grant to build an inland container port near. The inland port will be linked to the Port of Savannah by a direct intermodal freight rail service to divert truck traffic to and from the port. Florida’s JAXPORT boasts record container volumes. Total container movements rose by 37% year-over-yearto more than 128,900 TEUs.
The container shipping industry has come under increasing pressure in recent months, thus Seaspan Corporation has signed up for six 15,000 TEU modern newbuild container ships, in addition to recent orders and agreements with carriers.
