MALTA\\\


Parnis England Trucking has achieved a smooth handover of its UK agency from RH Freight to Knights of Old, says Stephen Parnis England of the long- established Malta family firm. “We started with Knights of Old on 1 July last year, he explains. “It went very well; luckily, a lot of the cargo between the UK and Malta is controlled here, which made things easier, but it was a pretty seamless transition.” When RH Freight was


swallowed by by Kuehne and Nagel, Stephen Parnis England decided he needed a family- sized firm as his new UK partner and Knights of Old fitted the bill. “If anything, the service level has improved since they took over; they’re able to give that personal service that we need.” It’s important that collections in the UK are managed smartly because the truck has to head down to Genoa in order to make the ferry to Malta on Saturday. If it misses that sailing, the next isn’t for several days and cargo would effectively be delayed by the best part of a week. Parnis England Trucking has


just renewed its trailers on the UK service and expects to see further market growth, as it does on its Italian service, which also enjoyed a good year in 2013. Services to Germany, run


in conjunction with Andreas Schmidt, have just gone up from once to twice-weekly, covering the whole country via


the partner’s hub near Munich. While


it wasn’t traditionally


one of Parnis England’s biggest markets, the German traffic is well-balanced with flows of business in either direction, which helps keep costs down. In general, “exports out of


Malta have increased, which does help in keeping pricing competitive,” says Stephen Parnis England. Pharmaceuticals are one of the island’s best known exports – though it isn’t a major traffic for Parnis England Trucking – but there is also furniture, packaging material, electronics and foodstuffs. The cost of operating trailer


services into Malta are relatively high, partly because of the imbalance of traffic, with inbound flows still greatly outnumbering outbound, and the relatively high ferry charges. There is now only one ferry option from the Italian mainland – the Grimaldi Malta Motorways of the Sea service – and while prices have not been increasing, they are already relatively high, Stephen Parnis England considers. While comparing


different routes is


difficult – some allowance must be made for the small size of the Maltese market which tends to push up prices - rates to Malta are perhaps around 20% higher than the comparable service to Catania on nearby Sicily. The route could probably


stand a second operator, says Stephen Parnis England,


although it probably would have to serve some other point besides Malta to make it viable. “Strategically, it would also be useful to have another service as a safety net,” he adds. The only other real alternative


is the Virtu Ferries service from Malta to Pozzallo in southern Sicily, by road to the north coast and then the short crossing over the Straits of Messina to the toe of Italy. Some operators, principally overland express carriers like TNT do use it as it works out quite a bit faster where double-manned trucks are used, although the effective time savings are much smaller for single-manned vehicles. Overall, business in Malta


remains good, says Stephen Parnis England. “Malta was never hit by the economic crash to a significant degree, although by the same token we probably won’t now see major growth. But


tourism remains strong


here, helped by the low cost airlines, and tourism brings a lot of business with it.” The small islands of Malta and Gozo can expect to welcome around 1.5 million visitors in the course of a year and at any one time the tourist industry adds at least 100,000 people to a resident population of around 300,000 or so.


Almost everything has to be


imported into Malta and that in turn generates business not only for road trailers but also the shipping industry. Parnis England’s sister company, WJ Parnis England represents a couple of lines, intra-Med operator


Brointermed


and APL which has a slot share on a service into Malta Freeport. WJPE is also an IATA airfreight agent.


Issue 4 2014 - Freight Business Journal


Parnis England finds its knight in shining armour “We also do quite a lot of land-


air and land-sea traffic, especially to Libya,” Stephen Parnis England explains. “Services from Malta to Libya are very regular and this option can give the best price.” There has been a move in Libya away from simple trading to logistics business, and Malta is an ideal hub in which to hold


stock destined for the North Africa where secure, high quality warehousing is scarce. “A retailer can consolidate everything destined for all his Libyan stores from all parts of Europe here and make one delivery rather than sending individual consignments to Libya.” Maltese business people have


33


a long and deep relationship with Libya; many of the well known high street names there are in fact Maltese-owned franchises. As Stephen Parnis England


says, Libya “still has a lot of issues to resolve” but


it is a


fundamentally wealthy country and one with great promise when and if it settles down.


XPH MALTA


“Your airfreight logistical partner representing various world renowned airlines.” WE DELIVER


Email: booking@xphmalta.com Tel: (+356) 2189 4130 - (+356) 2789 4145 XPH Malta Ltd. Malta International Airport, Cargo Village, Luqa LQA 3290, Malta.


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