News

Fracht Australia News - March 2019

1/3/2019

 

 

“Fall seven times and get up eight.”

Japanese Proverb 

AROUND THE WORLD 

• KENYA: Fracht continued its expansion on the African continent and opened a new office in Kenya: Fracht Kenya Ltd. Fatimah Court 12, Hurlingham – Arwings Kodhek Road, P.O. Box 104432-00101, Nairobi / Kenya. T +254 (20) 520 2763 or (737) 001 007. The Managing Director is Mrs Irene Kaloki with more than 20 years experience in the logistics industry – Irene.kaloki@ke.fracht.com / M +254 (733) 562 000
• IVORY COAST: Only weeks after the establishment of Fracht Kenya a brand new office was opened in Ivory Coast: FRACHT Ivory Coast, 6^th Floor, 7 Immeuble le 7, Rue du 7 December, Zone 4, Marcory, Abidjan, T +225 21 74 46 36. The Managing Director Yvan Stephane Ouedraogo yvan.ouedraogo@ci.fracht.africa  leads a very experienced and competent team of logistics professionals
• GERMANY: The port of Hamburg is losing market share to its rivals Rotterdam and Antwerp. The main reason seems to be draught restrictions in Hamburg which makes it impossible to handle fully laden 20,000 TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) vessels. The latest Global Port Tracker is projecting a 5.1% decline in container imports for Hamburg in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2018. Rotterdam and Hamburg saw their throughput numbers jump 5.7% respectively 6.8% recently.
• PHILIPPINES: Due to terminal congestion in Manila as well as limited trucking capacity Hapag Lloyd has ceased acceptance for all types of reefer cargo for both the North and South Harbor.
• PORTUGAL: MSC plans to build an inland container port in northern Portugal to link with its deepsea hub at Sines. The terminals in Lousado will cover 200,000 m2 and provide storage capacity of 10,000 TEUs. The new port due to be operational by March 2020 will have six rail lines capable of handling 12 – 14 trains per day.
• VIETNAM: The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Vietnam a “Category 1” safety rating. This is good news for airlines based in Vietnam because it will enable them to commence operating direct flights to the USA.

 

SEAFREIGHT NEWS 

• HAPAG LLOYD PLANS TO DISCONTINUE ITS DIRECT SERVICE FROM EUROPE to Australia. From 1 October 2019 the carrier will only offer transshipment services via Singapore.
• AAL’S NEW AAX2 SERVICE WILL OFFER THE ONLY DIRECT CALL TO HO CHI MINH to / from Australia. The rotations of this new service commencing in March will be Ho Chi Minh, Port Kelang, Singapore, Jakarta, Brisbane, Sydney, Townsville, Port Kelang, Ho Chi Minh.
• SHIPPING LINES FROM NORTH AMERICA HAVE ANNOUNCED A GENERAL RATE INCREASE of USD 175.00 per 20 ft and USD 300.00 per 40 ft container effective 1 April.
• HAPAG LLOYD PLANS TO RETROFIT THE 15,000 TEU VESSEL “Sajir” to use LNG which will result in a reduction of carbon dioxide by 15 – 30%.  The plan is to operate the ship using LNG with low sulphur fuel oil as a backup. Hapag Llolyd is the world’s first shipping company to retrofit a vessel of this size. The Sajir’s 16 sister ships are also technically prepared for retrofitting. Hapag Lloyd also announced that thanks the recent reduction of bunker costs their Marine Fuel Recovery Surcharges (MFR) will be adjusted downwards until further notice from 1 March.

 

AIRFREIGHT NEWS 

• ALL EXPORT AIRFREIGHT FROM AUSTRALIA MUST BE SCREENED AT PIECE LEVEL FROM 1 MARCH. Following our specials newsletter of 14 January we’d like to remind you that the news rules are now implemented which results in earlier cut offs in the terminals and additional screening costs.
• AIR VANUATU ANNOUNCES A NEW NON-STOP SERVICE BETWEEN MELBOURNE AND PORT VILA.  Commencing on 18 June 2019 the airline will operate three direct B737-800 flights per week between Melbourne and the capital of Vanuatu.
• IATA RELEASED THE FINAL AIRFREIGHT FIGURES FOR 2018. December wasn’t a good month for the industry. Compared to December 2017 international airfreight dropped by 0.4% while the Asia Pacific region had a -4.8% reduction.  Comparing the whole year 2018 with 2017 international airfreight increased by 3.6% and the Asia Pacific region 1.9%.
• IATA ALSO RELEASED THE 2018 AIRLINE SAFETY PERFORMANCE: Total accident rate per 1 million flights was 1.35 which is below the 5 year average of 1.79 but slightly higher than the 1.11 of 2017 which was a record year. As far as major jet accidents (measured in jet hull losses per 1 million flights) was concerned the outcome was similar with 0.19 in 2018 which was better than the 5 year average of 0.29 but worse than the rate of 0.12 in 2017. Sadly in 2018 there was an unusually high rate of fatalities (522) which compares with 234 average deaths in the last 5 years and a record low of only 19 in 2017. One accident in 2017 also resulted in 35 fatalities on the ground. Generally the accident rate for jets is much lower than turbo props.

 

AUSTRALIAN PORTS 

• STEVEDORES IN CONTAINER TERMINALS AROUND AUSTRALIA INTRODUCED “INFRASTRUCTURE CHARGES” only quite recently. In spite of a very significant increase last year they will now increase again by between 68% and 89% in March!! One such example is DP World Melbourne’s infrastructure charge in April 2017 was AUD 3.45 per container and this is now AUD 85.30!
• DP WORLD INTRODUCED A NEW “OFF WINDOW SURCHARGE” OF AUD 25.50. This will be collected if a truck arrives more than one hour prior or after its notification window which is half an hour.
• UNFORTUNATELY WE’VE SEEN QUITE A FEW DISRUPTIONS AND DELAYS in container terminals around Australia in late January and February due to industrial action by the maritime union (now part of the CFMMEU), stop work meetings, protests etc. Such problems of course contribute to the decrease of schedule reliability of shipping lines over the past couple of years.
• CYCLONE OMA IN LATE FEBRUARY caused some problems in Brisbane. Several ships were delayed and a few omitted Brisbane and discharged their cargo in Sydney.

 

BMSB – BROWN MARMORATED STINK BUG 

Further to our previous updates there is a little bit of good news. Some of the fumigation depots around Australia have managed to catch up with their backlogs and turnaround times have now improved. However, there are still quite a lot of problems, delays and extra costs importers are liable for.  Several ships were turned away from Australian ports and many containers had to be re-exported for further treatment which resulted in very difficult situations for importers.

 

CUSTOMER SERVICE

If you would like further information about any of the above items, please contact one of our friendly Fracht Team members at fracht@frachtsyd.com.au