News

Fracht Australia News - June 2017

1/6/2017

 

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

                                   Albert Einstein

AIRFREIGHT NEWS

• AIR CHINA PLANS TO INTRODUCE AND NEW SHENZEN – MELBOURNE – service from 20 June. There will be three direct flights per week departing on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
• QANTAS NOW OPERATES DAILY nonstop flights from Perth to London.
• EMIRATES ANNOUNCED THE INTRODUCTION OF a third daily service from Dubai to Brisbane on 1 December 2017. Emirates currently operates 77 flights per week from Dubai to Australia.
• SIA CARGO WILL BE REINGTEGRATED INTO SINGAPORE AIRLINES. SIA Cargo became a stand-alone company in 2001 and grew to a fleet of 17 x 747-400F freighters but due to the current difficult airfreight market now only operates seven 747-400Fs. The cargo division will continue to manage the belly hold capacity of Singapore Airlines, SilkAir and Scoot.
• EMIRATES AND CARGOLUX HAVE ENTERED INTO THE FIRST dedicated freighter and combo-carrier agreement of its kind. Emirates SkyCargo now has access to Cargolux’s B-747-8F nose-loading capabilities complementing its 777F capacity. Cargolux meanwhile gains access to Emirates’ vast belly hold capacity. In June Emirates will commence freighter services into Luxembourg and Cargolux will add additional freighter flights into Dubai.
• ACCORDING TO IATA figures worldwide airfreight continued to grow strongly in March.  In the first quarter of 2017 both international and Asian Pacific airfreight increased by 10.9% compared to the same period in 2016.

EXPORT AIRFREIGHT TO THE USA

We’d like to remind all our export clients that from 1 July that enhanced piece level security screening is mandatory for ALL export airfreight shipments to the USA. The Australian Air Cargo Terminal Operators will charge AUD 0.09 per kilo / minimum AUD 20.00 for this additional work AND cut off times will be 360 minutes before departure for general cargo and 270 minutes for express freight.

SEAFREIGHT NEWS

• HAPAG LLOYD LAUNCHED ITS NEW CHINA AUSTRALIA TAIWAN SERVICE (CAT) on 25 May with dedicated allocation serving South China and Taiwan to Australia. The rotation is Shekou – Kaohsiung – Sydney – Melbourne – Brisbane.
• MSC WILL INTRODUCE A HEAVY WEIGHT SURCHARGE for containers from Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to Australia and New Zealand on 5 June. Consignments which exceed 23 tonnes gross weight will be subject to a surcharge of USD 50.00 per TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit).
• THE MERGER BETWEEN HAPAG LLOYD AND UASC IS NOW COMPLETE (refer to our April Newsletter). The “new” Hapag Lloyd is the 5th largest global container line. For the immediate future the two companies will continue to operate independently. From mid-July the first UASC services will be transferred into Hapag Lloyd.

 AROUND THE WORLD

• SWEDEN: APM TERMINALS IN GOTHENBURG IMPOSED A PARTIAL LOCKOUT from 19 May until 30 June. We reported several times in recent months about the unfortunate situation in Sweden’s most important port. Unfortunately the situation went from bad to worse with ongoing strikes, go slow actions and extensive sick leave. Shipping Lines are declaring “Force Majeure” and are dropping containers in different ports causing long delays and additional costs for importers and exporters.
• SPAIN: The Spanish Council of Ministers approved a Royal Decree to reform the Spanish Ports Act which led to the Stevedores Union to announce strike action between 24 May and 9 June.
• POLAND: The Polish Government implemented “SENT” - a new Monitoring System for the Road Carriage of Goods.  Cargo transported in Poland by road MUST be reported via the SENT System prior to departure. Failure to report or wrong declaration of goods will result in fines between PLN 5,000.00 (EUR 1,300.00) and PLN 20,000.00 (EUR 5,000.00).
• SCANDINAVIA: Wilhelmsen Ships Service, the shipping agency arm of WWL launched a pilot project to make supply deliveries to vessel by drone instead of launch boats. Drones are suitable to deliver medical supplies, documents, cash, spare parts etc. and will cost only around USD 150.00 compared with an average of USD 1,500.00 for barge deliveries. In a similar move Maersk tankers has recently also completed its first drone delivery to the 37,200 dwt “Edgar Maersk” located offshore in Denmark.

AUSTRALIAN PORTS AND TERMINALS

• CONSTRUCTION HAS COMMENCED ON THE “MOOREBANK LOGISTICS PARK” in Sydney’s south west. Qube is developing the 243 hectare site under a 99 year lease. When complete the precinct will include up to 850,000 m2 warehousing and 1.5 million TEUs are expected to be transferred from Port Botany to the site by rail.     
• CHECK-WEIGHING AT THE NEW VICTORIA INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL (VICT) has revealed serious non-compliance with the VGM (verified gross mass) rules. 20% of export containers were mis-declared by a variance of more than 500 kilos and for import containers the variance was 40%. The civil penalty for a mis-declared VGM is AUD 9,000.00 (Marine Orders Part 42 – Section 11). To date VGM auditing by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has been primarily paper based and this new check-weighing will provide a new environment of legal accountability for shippers, forwarders and transport operators.
• STRIKES AT PATRICK’S BOTANY SITE FINALY CAME TO AN END on 4 May after Police cleared a picket line of wharfies. It took several days to completely clear the backlog.
• TRUCKERS IN SYDNEY EXPERIENCED EXTENSIVE DELAYS in the first half of May attempting to de-hire containers to MCS Cooks River Terminal. Instead of the usual half an hour waiting time many drivers had to wait up to four hours to de-hire an empty container which resulted in expensive truck demurrage charges.