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FREIGHT BREAK Tweets in our time?


When Iceland’s volcano erupted, causing chaos in Europe’s air transport industry, cargo, like passengers, was delayed, mislaid and otherwise disrupted. One of the major challenges faced by airlines was how to keep their customers up-to-date about delayed, cancelled or resumed flights. On the passenger side, many turned to social media - Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin - finding that customers used it to help other customers, for example by updating the situation in their country. Could the cargo community also benefit from Tweeting? Lufthansa Cargo (LC)


has already started a Twitter ‘channel’, saying that it is “very helpful”. “Social media platforms will become more important, even for b2b companies,” said a LC spokesman. “We are reviewing our strategy towards the use of social media now.” Other carriers, such as Cargolux and AF-KLM, relied on daily postings on their


web sites or via emails to keep forwarders updated. However, as individuals become used to networking online, the potential for communication via social media should not be overlooked. There is, though, one big barrier to the use of social media: a lot of forwarders


don’t allow their staff to access social media sites - in case employees spend too much time on personal networking,


Cross words


From the outset, the FBJ team were determined that the paper should include a prize crossword, reviving an long tradition in the printed freight media. But with just a few days to go before print date, it dawned on us that none of us had the faintest idea of how to produce one. Doodling with a few likely words on a sheet of paper only confirmed that it is in fact much more difficult than it looks, and it was only with the aid of some computer wizardry that we were at last able to put something together. To be honest, the end result wasn’t great. I showed it to a friend of mine better


versed in these things and apparently we have offended all sorts of sorts of crossword etiquette in terms of the way the grid is laid out. Worse, everyone I have spoken to says that it was “too difficult” - and indeed


we have not received a single correct entry at FBJ offices. (I admit, making ‘Manchester’ the answer to North-west port was a little unfair.) The good news is that, firstly, that the clues in the latest puzzle are much easier


FBJ crossword No. 2 £100! WIN


Winner drawn Monday 9th August. Send entries to: FBJ CROSSWORD Freight Business Journal Saunders Associates Ltd Station House Mersey Road Liverpool UK L17 6AG


Employees of FBJ and their agents are not eligible to enter.


PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR NAME ADDRESS AND TELEPHONE NUMBER.


and, secondly, the £50 prize has been rolled over, so there’s a whopping £100 up for grabs this time. We can hardly bear the suspense.


Overboard


One of the more persistent urban myths is that there are thousands of containers – tens of thousands possibly – of floating containers bobbing around just below the surface of the world’s oceans, waiting to sink any yachts-person unfortunate to cross their path. It’s a claim that has always puzzled Ian Lush of the TT Club. As one of the world’s leading cargo insurers, with around 80% of the boxed freight insurance market, if it was a problem he’d know all about it. “A figure of 10,000 ‘floating boxes’ has been bandied about for a long time,”


he told us. “But we’ve looked at our payouts and there were perhaps 2,000 instances of containers being lost from ships. However, 98% of those happened in ports where the boxes would have been quickly recovered. Of the ones that were lost on the high seas, 90% would have sunk, so I can’t imagine there can be more than 20 ‘floating’ boxes a year – if that.”


Corporate sponsorship SOLUTION TO pREvIOUS ISSUE AcROSS


1 Container line (1,1,1,1) 2 London football club (8) 5 Ocean (8) 6 Dormant part of railway? (7) 7 US parcels carrier-in full (7,7) 8 Road surface (7)


dOWN


1 Welsh airport and RAF station (6) 2 Ordinary ship? (12) 3 Northeast region and airport (8) 4 Kitchenwear, near runway (5)


9 Customs process (9)


11 Freight holder (9) 12 Mentor (7)


13 Chinese port city (8) 14 Middle East hub (7) 15 Livestock (5)


10 Former shipping conference (1,1,1,1) 13 Indian port (5,5) 15 Aircraft family (6) 16 Daddy of all customs computers (5) 17 Australasian port (9) 18 Ferry (4)


I’m not quite sure what’s going on here at Glastonbury, the famed music and mud festival, where our esteemed publisher John Saunders took his campervan the other day – but I’m not sure I approve of the creeping corporatism. Has he found a market for freight advertising among the tie- dye and bangles set? Perhaps John’s on to something. Or just on something.


Bibby Line - Thank you


And finally, a sequel to my story about the encounter with the Militant Wing of the Maritime Historians Society in a Liverpool pub. A volume about the history of Bibby Line has been delivered to the office in Liverpool. I would like to thank Sir Michael Bibby for his generous gift, and I promise that next time I meet an old sailor in a Liverpool pub I will know the names of every Bibby Line vessel!


ISSUE 2 2010


ROLLOVER


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