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Issue 7 2013 Freight Business Journal Tide turns for All-Route


Freight forwarder All-Route Shipping, based in Belfast port, is integrating support services such as IT and accounts into the Woodside Group at its Ballynure headquarters between Belfast and Larne. The merging of back-office functions makes sense following the company’s acquisition by Woodside in August 2011, says All-Route MD Carson McMullan, but it retains a 4,000sq metre facility in the port. Eddie McCormick, has


joined the team as general manager. “I won’t be getting completely out of day-to-day operations,” McMullan says, “but it’s more about business development now. I was appointed in May as chairman of the British International Freight Association, which I see as


an important networking


opportunity, and I have never been able to do enough as a member of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, so now I feel I’m freed up for that as well.” All-Route was “holding its


own” but was not profitable leading up to the takeover. “We’re now seeing


a turnaround,”


McMullan says. “My sons were not following


me into the business and it was getting very difficult managing 20 people direct,” he admits. “Woodside has 400 employees, 300 vehicles on the road and 500-600 trailers making up to 1,000 Irish Sea crossings per


Carson McMullan, BIFA chairman and MD of All- Route Shipping, pictured (left) with Fred Osborn, BIFA vice chairman will be stepping back into a business development role


///IRELAND


Seafreight recovers but lo lo fails to liſt


Irish shipping and port activity rose by 11% in the second quarter of 2013 when compared to the corresponding


period of 2012,


according to the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO). Four of the five principal freight


segments, ro-ro, dry bulk, liquid bulk and breakbulk, grew in the quarter. Ro-ro trailer


volumes


increased by 8% to 229,772 units. Ireland-UK traffic grew by 6% as demand in the UK improved, but IMDO reports there was also a stronger


performance in direct


continental volumes (up 26%), which were boosted by additional vessel capacity on some routes. However, lo-lo traffic fell by


week. They have a fantastic ethos.” While Woodside has many


activities, including international full and part-load transport, pallet distribution, a bulk tanker operation and a car import business, All-Route adds further pieces to the jigsaw.


“You can’t


just rely on freight forwarding. We’re mainly leſt with SMEs here following the demise of the textiles industry and the loss of much of our machinery manufacturing,” McMullan says. All-Route provides a pick-and-


pack service for customers of Caterpillar, one of the surviving heavy manufacturers which makes diesel and gas powered generators in Northern Ireland. “We still have a personal effects business, which is profitable but


labour intensive,” McMullan says. “We work for other agents in the port, doing 300-400 customs declarations per month for companies without a Chief connection, and we offer ships agency services to CMA CGM and Samskip.” Becoming part of a larger group has taken All-Route into


more complex processes such as ISO 9001 quality management and ISO environmental management. “It


will make


it easier for us to get AEO [Authorised Economic Operator] certification,” concludes.


“The scheme


McMullan has


made a slow start, but suddenly everyone will want it.”


1% year on year to 147,000 units. Containerised exports were flat overall, despite improved shipments of meat and dairy products, while imports of container-based commodities into Ireland also fell in response to weaker industrial and consumer sentiment, marking the 22nd consecutive quarterly decline.


Overall container movements


in Q2 were slightly up on the first quarter’s total of 140,681 units, which represented the lowest level of activity in the box trade for over a decade. Half-year results from Irish Group hint that market


Continental the container may


finally have bottomed out. The group’s Container and Terminal Division, which includes Eucon as well as the DFT and BCT terminals in Dublin and Belfast, recorded an 8.3% increase in turnover and an improvement in profit from operations, up from €1.7 million to €2.4 million, “reflecting stronger shipping volumes”. Total containers shipped were


up 11.3% at 140,600 teu, though the number of units liſted at the division’s port facilities in Dublin and Belfast fell by 3.5% to 86,400 liſts. An increase in Dublin was offset by a reduction in Belfast, which ICG blamed on changes to ship schedules.


California calling


Aer Lingus is set to return to the US west coast in 2014 aſter a five- year gap. The carrier suspended Los Angeles services in 2008 and dropped San Francisco the following year. Five flights per week from Dublin


to San Francisco will begin from April, with road feeder connections offered to and from major cities from San Diego to Seattle. Aer Lingus has appointed Heavyweight as its GSA to generate traffic back to Europe. A Dublin-Toronto service will


launch in January, with four flights per week in the winter increasing to daily for the summer season. “On this route we will be operating a B757, so the unit sizes will be smaller, but we see good potential in the post and parcel markets,” says director of cargo Peter O’Neill. Flights from Shannon to Boston


and JFK are meanwhile returning to all year round. These services will also deploy B757s, but are good news for Shannon because in recent years Aer Lingus has offered no transatlantic services from the airport during the January-March window. Some 51% of all medical devices


produced in Ireland, and 30% of all pharmaceutical output, are exported to the US, virtually all by air, according to the Irish Exporters Association. John Whelan, IEA chief


executive, believes the


resurrection of west coast services will stimulate further investment into Ireland’s life sciences sector. Aer Lingus’s transatlantic


volumes out of Ireland have been running strongly, though inbound has been sluggish. Transit traffic from the US via Dublin into Europe, which O’Neill says has been “good in the last couple of years despite the gauge change,” (the transatlantic A330s use different containers to


Aer Lingus is well on its way to a Good Distribution Practice passport, with the help of CSafe


the A320 family used in Europe). But it has been more challenging this year because of new direct capacity, such as Delta Airlines’ Atlanta-Düsseldorf service. Other competitors went to


extraordinary lengths in the summer


to fill their bellyhold


capacity, O’Neill notes, with US- Ireland cargo on occasions dog- legging via Qatar. Total air freight tonnage in and


out of Ireland from January to July was up 19% year on year, though the figure for markets served by Aer Lingus showed a more modest 3.6% growth. Aer Lingus has used CSafe active


temperature-controlled containers to support its AerCool service since last year, and is close to achieving the pharmaceutical Good Distribution


Practice “passport”.


Employee training is now complete and €1.5 million has invested over the last two years on upgrading the Dublin warehouse to maintain supply chain integrity. Meanwhile, the carrier has


signed up to the IATA multilateral electronic air waybill (e-AWB) agreement, taking it a step closer to paperless airfreight operations. “We’re now talking with forwarders to see who wants to participate on the ground,” O’Neill says.


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