A Year - or so - in Multimodal Freight
with Culina Group taking the first warehouse unit.
The US Federal Aviation Administration slaps a $350,000 fine on Amazon for sending a leaking one-gallon container of corrosive by UPS. It adds that the online retailer had a history of violating the Hazardous Materials Regulations, totting up 24 other breaches of the rules from February 2013 to September 2015.
Following the announcement of a ‘leave’ result in the EU referendum on 24 June, the Freight Trans- port Association (FTA) warns that coming out of union risks disrupting the UK supply chains. It raises the spectre of customs carnets, last used by the UK in 1992, and calls on the Government to prioritise arrangements for international freight transport in its negotiations.
The 9,472teu Cosco Shipping Panama opens the enlarged Panama Canal on 26 June and intro- duces a new term in the shipping lexicon – Ne- opanamax. The expansion programme includes, doubling the cargo capacity of the waterway. The enlarged canal is expected to revolutionise transatlantic trade.
PD Ports, Port of Tyne, ABP Ports and Peel Ports sign an agreement to ensure their collective voice is heard by Government and to improve freight and transport links across the North. They agree on 29 June to pursue a Northern Ports Strategy, work together to create new jobs in and around ports, and boost investment in an East-West Freight Supercorridor.
July 2016
The government says on 6 July that a new 3,600-lorry parking area near Dover will go ahead after all, despite widespread controversy over the plan. The announcement comes only weeks after the House of Commons Transport Committee asks for more evidence of the bene- fits of the scheme.
HM Revenue & Customs reveals plans to over- haul the law governing warehousing of excise alcohol – a quarter century after first propos- ing the idea. It would simplify tax across dispa- rate alcohol regimes, automate transactions in line with HMRC’s digital ambition for 2020 and streamline processes.
The International Air Transport Association
(IATA) and the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) unveil a new-look IATA Cargo Agency Program, which they say will put forwarders on a more equal footing than the present airline-centric set-up. It reflects the evolution of IATA cargo agents or freight forwarders from being selling-agents for airlines to purchasing customers.
Telford lorry driver Jim Rushton, accused of bringing illegal immigrants into the UK, has a £10,000 fine overturned by the Home Office. He
www.multimodal.org.uk
was fined when five stowaways were found after he left Calais on 12 January but always main- tained his vehicle had been checked stringently.
The Global Shippers Forum (GSF) unveils a plan to put a stop to shipping surcharges at its annu- al meeting in Colombo, in late July. It describes them as “a source of intense frustration to their customers around the world. It says that ship- ping lines and forwarders often threaten to not transport containers if their surcharges have not been paid, putting intolerable pressure on ship- pers to pay up.
August 2016
The airfreight industry and battery manufactur- ers including IATA, the Global Shippers Forum and the International Air Cargo Association, and the US Rechargeable Battery Association write to trade, transport and aviation ministers calling for transport regulations on Lithium batteries to be properly enforced. The letter also called for significant fines and prison sentences for those who break the rules.
Ocean shipping electronic marketplace INTTRA says that a 17% increase in container volume for the first half of 2016 and a record number of container orders on its core transaction platform suggest that the industry has reached a tipping point where digital shipping management is now a competitive necessity.
Freight movements through Calais are severely disrupted by stowaways, says the Food Storage and Distribution Federation on 19 August. A re- ported 6,000 immigrants are trying to cross to the UK, warns federation chief executive, Chris Sturman. The trade body says that some of its members have stopped receiving goods through Calais due to damage and contamination of sen- sitive food cargoes.
On-line retail giant Amazon says it will open what is believed to be the UK’s largest ever warehouse at the Forth Ports-Roxhill Developments-owned London Distribution Park at Tilbury. The facility will also be one of the most highly automated in the country and is part of a programme by Amazon to increase the size of its UK fulfilment centre. It will be Amazon’s 13th fulfilment centre in the UK.
More than a quarter of incidents on ships are caused by mis-declared cargo, says UK P&I Club risk assessor David Nichol. He reports that data captured by the container-shipping lines’ Cargo Incident Notification System (CINS) in 2013/14 indicates that 27% of incidents for which the cause was detected were attributable to cargo being mis-declared, second only to poor pack- aging.
The world’s longest aircraft – the Airlander 10 airship – is damaged after nosediving on land- ing in Bedfordshire during its second test flight but the crew are uninjured. A spokesman for the
developer, HAV, was reported as saying: “The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed.” HAV, which took over the pro- ject from the US military, is hoping to develop the Airlander for a number of uses, including cargo transport. Later, in February 2017, HAV says that it hopes to return the repaired craft to the skies that year.
The global recession and global overcapacity claims its largest shipping industry casualty to date when Korean-owned Hanjin calls in the receivers on 31 August, with debts of $5.5 billion. The financial collapse of the world’s seventh-largest container operator leaves the freight industry in turmoil, with some ports refusing entry to Hanjin ships. It takes several months to sort the situation out. Hanjin is finally declared bankrupt by the Seoul Central District Court on 17 February.
September 2016
The Aviation Industry Corporation of China signs a deal with Ukraine’s Antonov Corporation to re- start production of the AN-225, by most counts the world’s largest cargo aircraft. Under the first phase of the agreement an incomplete second An-225 will be produced by 2019, followed by licensed production of modernised versions on the plane in China.
DP World London Gateway Port claims a clean sweep of all the UK’s direct services to Austral- ia after CMA-CGM announces that its NEMO (North European Mediterranean Oceania) and Hapag-Lloyd’s EAX (Europe, Australia Express) combined service will begin calling in early Jan- uary.
With 1 October marking the end of the three- month settling-in period for the International Maritime Organisation’s container weighing rules, predictions that ports would be clogged by immobile boxes have proved unfounded, says BIFA. Director general Robert Keen said that some of the wilder predictions were similar to the ‘Millennium Bug’ fears of aircraft dropping out the sky and lights going off – which also proved to be unfounded.
October 2016
US company Zipline claims to have started the world’s first commercial drone delivery service, in Rwanda, using automatically-flown fixed- wing drones that resemble small light aircraft. Zipwire starts operations with 15 drones and is being paid by Rwanda’s health department on a per delivery basis.
The UK and China agree on 11 October to more than double the number of flights between the two countries. Under the deal, passenger flights can increase from 40 per week for each nation to up to 100 and there will be no limit on the num- ber of all-cargo services. The government state- ment however says nothing on whether airlines could be able to find slots at UK airports to serve
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