Newsletter – June 2, 2021

AIR FREIGHT UPDATES

Did the air cargo recovery stall in May?

aircargonews.net
The recovery of the air cargo market appeared to stall in May, the latest figures from CLIVE Data Services suggest.
The data provider’s figures show that air cargo demand dropped by 4% in May compared with the same month in 2019 (2019 is used for comparison purposes given last year’s volatile market). Read more here.

Slashing red tape helped airlines speed COVID vaccine shipments

freigthwaves.com
The airfreight industry has performed well during the first rollout of COVID vaccines, but air cargo professionals say they expect vaccine volumes shipped by air to increase this summer as more doses are produced and developed countries begin exporting more after immunizing their own populations.
Initial fears that huge quantities of temperature-sensitive shipments would overwhelm a system handicapped by a severe shortage of aircraft, limited cold-storage infrastructure in developing nations and lack of clear pharmaceutical shipping specifications never materialized. Read more here.

American Airlines Partnership Offers 15 Minute COVID Self Tests

simpleflying.com
American Airlines continues to streamline its COVID-19 era flight experience. The airline is now offering 15-minute self-administered at-home testing via a healthcare partner. The results are uploaded to the VeriFLY app on the passenger’s smartphone, allowing for faster movement through an airport. American Airlines says they are trying to offer passengers an easier travel experience. Read more here.

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

Exporting restarts at Yantian, but carriers bypass port as congestion reigns

theloadstar.com
Export operations resumed at Shenzhen’s port of Yantian on Monday, but a 20,000 container backlog and slow productivity means at least another week of delays.
The past 48 hours saw a raft of schedule omissions, with ONE announcing 12 of its vessels would skip Yantian and nearby Shekou between 30 May and 13 June, and a further two services switching to Nansha, in Guangzhou. Read more here (login required).

Mid-value products ‘getting priced out’ of ocean freight

lloydsloadinglist.com
A number of significant lower-value commodities such as furniture and large electrical and electronic appliances are becoming ‘priced out’ of major intercontinental ocean freight markets because of the elevated freight rates facing importers currently, new analysis by Sea-Intelligence has revealed.
In its latest Sunday Spotlight briefing, the Copenhagen-based container shipping consultant looked at the impact on importers of a variety of different consumer goods of the current elevated freight spot rates on the Asia to US West Coast and North Europe trade lanes. Read more here.

Viewpoint: Is Yantian next pothole on maritime superhighway?

freightwaves.com
Supply chains around the world are about to experience another hiccup.
Yantian, serving 100 ships weekly as one of the busiest ports in the world, has been partially shut for the past week because of a COVID-19 outbreak. Given that Yantian processed 13.34 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2020, this slowdown will further hit lean and struggling supply chains. Read more here.

Charred remains of the X-Press Pearl sinking off Colombo

splash247.com
With white smoke still billowing from its foredeck, the 2,700 teu X-Press Pearl, not yet four months old, started to sink today in waters off Sri Lanka’s west coast.
Salvors had managed to attach a tow to the ship, and at the orders of the country’s president, had commenced to tow the fire-ravaged boxships to deeper waters today. Read more here.

CANADA BUSINESS – GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Port of Montreal Update

ciffa.com
A month on since operations resumed at the Port of Montreal, the return to normalcy is happening more quickly than had been anticipated, said Daniel Dagenais, VP, Operations, in a video posted yesterday.

“Traffic flow has noticeably improved,” he said. “Today, there’s about 2,500 containers still left on the ground for rail, a reduction of about 70% since the end of the labour dispute.
“Container dwell time is slowly moving towards our long-term average of about 2 to 3 days, a solid improvement over the last few weeks, as well.
“Trucking operations have been running at full tilt for the last few weeks, with about 2,000 trucks a day and an average turn-around time of about 38 minutes from port entry to exit of terminal.”

Director appointments at Air Canada Cargo

aircargonews.net
Air Canada Cargo has appointed two new sales directors, one joining from a freight forwarder the other an internal promotion.
The airline has promoted Matthieu Casey to the role of senior director, cargo global sales and revenue optimisation from his current position as director, cargo revenue management and business strategy.
Casey will lead Air Canada Cargo’s global sales as well as the business intelligence, network strategy, interline partnerships, pricing and distribution and capacity optimisation teams. Read more here.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Vietnam Coronavirus Outbreak Threatens to Disrupt Tech Supply Chain

reuters.com
A rapidly spreading COVID-19 outbreak has left factories operating below capacity in Vietnam’s industrial northern provinces, where suppliers for Apple, Samsung and other global tech firms are located, industry sources said.
After successfully containing the coronavirus for most of last year, Vietnam is now battling an outbreak. More than 3,000 people have been infected in 30 of its 63 cities and provinces since late April. Read more here.