Florida Shipper articles from April 2008

Florida Shipper archives from April 2008

Econocaribe adds direct Miami LCL service to Asia.
April 4, 2008... Econocaribe announced that it has added less-than-containerload direct export service from Miami to Hong Kong. The NVOCC plans to include cargo from the Southeast United States. The company already offers LCL cargo service to Europe and the...

Deputy dog.
April 7, 2008... The U.S. State Department used to have at least a semblance of elegance. That was before it opened Anna Nicole Smith's passport file just to see where she had been, and whom she had been with. It was also well before the department did the same...

NVOCC Trade and Logistics Get a grip on automation.
April 7, 2008... BYLINE: RICK EYERDAM Customs' toolbox is handy, when you can find it The combination of rail, sea, air and truck commercial cargo processing into an integrated, ACE multimodal manifest system will allow CBP to replace the three...

SuperLoadsFX launches exchange for over-dimensional cargo.
April 7, 2008... The world's first independent freight exchange designed specifically for the heavy-haul industry premiered with the launch of SuperLoadsFX.com. Using its centralized online marketplace, over-dimensional cargo owners auction their shipments to...

How Perry Ellis saved $225,000.
April 7, 2008... BYLINE: ALAN M. FIELD More companies are using software to audit freight charges You're importing products from dozens of manufacturers throughout Asia and Latin America, and your list of suppliers is continually changing. How do you...

Descartes launches CargoBooker.
April 7, 2008... Descartes Systems Group in February launched CargoBooker, a basic electronic booking service aimed at small- and medium-sized airfreight forwarders. The service, part of the Descartes GF-X Exchange, enables forwarders to access air cargo...

SMC3 announces new 'XL' technology for transportation pricing.
April 7, 2008... Transportation pricing technology provider SMC3 announced a new suite of technology it calls its "XL" suite. Indicative of speed, the XL label signifies a service-oriented architecture (SOA) delivery system. The new XL technology...

Cornerstone acquisition gives Newgistics access to Postal Service business.
April 7, 2008... Reverse logistics specialist Newgistics expects to gain unprecedented access to one of the most intricate distribution networks in the world, the delivery system operated by the U.S. Postal Service, with its acquisition of Cornerstone Shipping...

SAP introduces new supply-chain software.
April 7, 2008... SAP AG has introduced the upcoming release of its supply-chain-management software, an application that will include enhanced functionality for supply network collaboration, extended warehouse management and enhanced planning. The company...

Jaxport, Hanjin sign agreement for terminal.
April 7, 2008... The Jacksonville Port Authority and Hanjin Shipping Co. signed a detailed development agreement for a 170-acre container terminal facility. The agreement expands on the memorandum of understanding signed with Hanjin in October 2007, according...

Econocaribe adds direct Miami LCL service to Asia.
April 7, 2008... Econocaribe announced that it has added less-than-containerload direct export service from Miami to Hong Kong. The NVOCC plans to include cargo from the Southeast United States. The company already offers LCL cargo service to Europe and the...

FMC request could delay LA-Long Beach truck plan.
April 7, 2008... A Federal Maritime Commission request for more information could delay implementation of the clean-trucks programs at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The ports in February filed a request to form the Los Angeles/Long Beach...

WSC's Koch backs 10+2, pans box tax for roads.
April 7, 2008... Congress may try to shift the burden of funding the maintenance and expansion of public highway infrastructure onto containerized imports and exports when it has to reauthorize the highway-spending program next year. Chris Koch, president...

Royal Caribbean plans cruise port at Falmouth.
April 7, 2008... Falmouth, Jamaica, has been selected among several Caribbean cruise destinations as part of the global preparation being made by Royal Caribbean International for the berthing of the newest and largest class of cruise ships, the Genesis Class,...

Come back to the islands.
April 7, 2008... Florida's prosperous and growing Caribbean community has become the target of efforts by representatives from the homeland this past month. Prakash Saith, president of the National Energy Corp. of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. took the opportunity...

Third Caribbean American Business Expo set for May.
April 7, 2008... Central Florida's Third Annual Caribbean American Business Exposition is planned for May 23-24 at the Central Florida Fair and Exposition Park, West Colonial Drive in Orland. The exposition's theme this year is "Sustaining the Florida...

Acquisitions spur rapid growth at Agility.
April 7, 2008... BYLINE: BILL DIBENEDETTO The "A" in Agility apparently stands for acquisition. Global logistics provider PWC Logistics rebranded itself as Agility in late 2006, and the Kuwait-based firm has been on an aggressive acquisition and expansion...

UPS names Global Freight Forwarding team.
April 7, 2008... UPS has appointed Eric W. Kirchner president of Freight Forwarding to lead a new senior management team to oversee its freight forwarding, global brokerage and non-asset network management services. Kirchner will oversee a global...

Port Manatee Propeller Club honors members.
April 7, 2008... The Port Manatee Propeller Club honored Florida Department of Transportation District 1 Secretary Stan Cann with its highest honor as Maritime Person of the Year during a ceremony on March 13 at the Bradenton Yacht Club. Cann received the...

Marad seeks director for new Miami office.
April 7, 2008... The U.S. Maritime Administration is seeking applicants for the new position of director for its new gateway office in Miami. Marad Gateway offices are designed to provide Marad with a day-to-day presence throughout the marine transportation...

Port fees could ravage agriculture exports.
April 7, 2008... BYLINE: BILL MONGELLUZZO The potential proliferation of port-imposed container fees could cripple U.S. agricultural exports, which already face stiff price competition in global markets, according the Agriculture Transportation Coalition,...

Cargolux adds service to Miami, Houston.
April 7, 2008... All-cargo airline Cargolux this week started a weekly round-trip service to Miami with continuation to Houston. The flight operates every Sunday morning, departing from Luxembourg at 8:30 a.m., with arrival in Miami at 12:50 p.m. Departure...

Save the first-sale rule.
April 14, 2008... When I was vice president of marketing for a chain of retail stores, we did business with a middleman who traveled the world looking for the best deals on the newest trends in toys, apparel and household goods. Sal would return with his samples...

The space chase.
April 14, 2008... BYLINE: WILLIAM ARMBRUSTER Shortages of vessel capacity and containers frustrate forwarders Vessels are not made of rubber, and they cannot stretch." So says Barbara Platz, ocean export manager for Schenker Inc. And there's the rub for...

Talking Turkey.
April 14, 2008... BYLINE: RICK EYERDAM A blue water highway alternative The Federal Maritime Administration and The Journal of Commerce will host a conference this week in Virginia about methods to realize the long-sought after dream of a maritime blue...

Port of Houston certified by ABS Quality Evaluations.
April 14, 2008... ABS Quality Evaluations has certified the security management system of the Port of Houston Authority, Port Police to ISO 28000:2007. This makes the Houston port authority the first one in the world to receive ISO 28000:2007 certification. ...

Union seeks details on trade.
April 14, 2008... The United Steelworkers union is asking presidential candidates how they plan to address what the union considers unfair trade policies with China and other countries. Union President Leo W. Gerard sent letters to Sens. Hillary Clinton,...

PMA-ILWU talks progress.
April 14, 2008... In the first update on contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association since the talks began three weeks ago, the sides on April 3 said negotiators are working to reach a "fair...

Seaboard expands Mexico, Caribbean service.
April 14, 2008... According to published reports, Seaboard Marine has expanded service in Mexico and the Caribbean Basin. The Mexico/Pan-Caribbean service will use three ships on a rotation of Veracruz, Altamira, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Cristobal, Rio Haina,...

China to increase Caribbean influence.
April 14, 2008... The biggest news to come out of the Miami meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank was a scoop by public televisions' Paul Kangas. He reported that China is in talks with the Inter-American Development Bank for a seat at the bank's table....

Caricom port duties must go.
April 14, 2008... Bruce Zagaris, who has been analyzing the Cariforum (Caricom and Dominican Republic) Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, has concluded that, "In seven years, Cariforum governments must eliminate 'other duties and tax...

US offers security help to the Caribbean.
April 14, 2008... Thomas A. Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Adm. James Stavridis, U.S. Navy commander, U.S. Southern Command, recently toured the Caribbean nations of Guyana, Barbados and Suriname and met with heads of...

Customs suspends global trade exchange, calls for limits on 100 percent scanning.
April 14, 2008... A senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official said recently that Customs and Border Protection has suspended its plans to develop a global trade exchange system that would have expanded the amount of trade data collected by the agency....

Comeback for ILA.
April 14, 2008... BYLINE: JOSEPH BONNEY Clyde Fitzgerald still has a copy of a 2000 Journal of Commerce report on a nascent campaign by the International Longshoremen's Association to regain breakbulk work lost to non-ILA competitors in Gulf and South...

MSC to hike fuel surcharge.
April 14, 2008... Mediterranean Shipping Co. said it plans to increase its bunker fuel surcharge on imports from Italy, Spain, southern France and Portugal to the United States by $75 per TEU, effective April 15. The new rate for containers arriving at East...

Wallenius Wilhelmsen expands intra-Americas service.
April 14, 2008... Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics is expanding its intra-Americas service with the addition of two pure car-truck carriers to its existing roll-on, roll-off service, effective April 28. The vessels will provide capacity for 3,000 cars per...

CMA CGM halts Liberty Bridge service.
April 14, 2008... BYLINE: WILLIAM ARMBRUSTER Space will get even tighter on the trans-Atlantic for U.S. exporters with the termination of the weekly Liberty Bridge service. CMA CGM operated the service in conjunction with China Shipping. Each carrier...

Port Tracker predicts modest growth for US container imports.
April 14, 2008... The traditional winter slack shipping season in the eastbound Pacific is coming to an end, but the growth in container volumes in the months ahead will be modest at best, according to Port Tracker's April report. Port Tracker, published...

American Airlines Cargo boosts weight limit.
April 14, 2008... American Airlines Cargo has increased the weight limit for express freight from 100 pounds to 300 pounds per piece on narrow-body aircraft. AA Cargo provides more than 100 million pounds of weekly cargo lift capacity to major cities in the...

Pay those gripers.
April 21, 2008... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam The movers and shakers behind the critically needed expansion of Port Everglades need to learn a lesson from the folks at the Port of Los Angeles. For five years, environmentalists have succeeded in pressuring Los...

In-bond shipments: the Trojan Horse.
April 21, 2008... BYLINE: JAMES GIERMANSKI In-bond shipments have long been an essential part of trade in the U.S., but the system overseen by Customs and Border Protection may be out of step with the increasing demands of national security. In-bond...

Selling the 'right to pollute'.
April 21, 2008... BYLINE: BILL MONGELLUZZO Transport companies slow to profit from environmental advances As they rush to comply with a proliferation of anti-pollution requirements, freight transportation companies resemble a horse wearing blinkers....

How cap-and-trade works.
April 21, 2008... * A state, federal or international regulatory body sets a cap for allowable pollution. * A company invests in equipment or facilities that exceed those requirements, and earns pollution credits. * These credits are sold to other...

All Stars.
April 21, 2008... Jaxport's team leads Florida's fastest-growing port Port of Jacksonville Executive Director Rick Ferrin is in the catbird seat. But unlike Red Barber's term without an actual etymon, Ferrin carefully engineered his catbird seat with the...

Jaxport's major initiatives.
April 21, 2008... According to managers at the Port of Jacksonville, the port will focus on five strategic initiatives this year as it begins its decade of development. Facilities Jaxport is managing the construction of the new TraPac Container Terminal, a...

Costa Rica and Cleveland enter trade pact.
April 21, 2008... Experts don't know yet, in Costa Rica or Cleveland, when or if an ocean cargo carrier will be willing to travel seven extra days to deliver exports of coffee, tea and pineapples to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nor do they know which Saint Lawrence...

Census official: Expect further delays in export e-filing rules.
April 21, 2008... Exporters who are awaiting the long-delayed rules requiring mandatory use of the Automated Export System for filing export declarations will have to wait longer, according to the head of the Census Bureau's foreign trade division. "The...

Environmentalists urge IADB to end biofuel loans.
April 21, 2008... Environmental groups urged the Inter-American Development Bank to stop lending money to big companies entering the ethanol business because the biofuels increase food costs and lead to shortages. At its recent meeting in Miami, the IADB...

Seafreight awarded FCBF Firm of the Year.
April 21, 2008... Florida-based Seafreight Agencies has been named the 2008 Firm of the Year by Florida Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association board of directors. The agency was selected from more than 300 logistics industry companies by a panel of its...

US ups security on vessels from Cuba.
April 21, 2008... The U.S. will tighten requirements for vessels entering the nation from Cuban ports. The Coast Guard said the conditions of entry are necessary because Cuba has not implemented effective anti-terrorism measures at its ports. The...

Winds of change sweeping Caribbean leaders.
April 21, 2008... The political landscape in the Caribbean region has changed considerably over the past several months, making room for opposition parties and signifying an end to the often long-standing rule of the outgoing administrations, according to...

Well above-average hurricane season forecast for 2008.
April 21, 2008... The Colorado State University team has predicted an Atlantic hurricane season well above average in the number of storm days, storms and landfall incidents in the United States and the Caribbean. The team's anticipated probabilities for a...

Environmentalists stall Port Everglades turning notch.
April 21, 2008... Plans to expand Port Everglades to accommodate 5,500-TEU container ships stalled on April 8 when the Broward County Commission declined to approve a key part of the port's new master plan. The plan includes a provision to remove 8.7 acres...

District Court judge tosses Port of Miami stevedore selection.
April 21, 2008... BYLINE: RICK EYERDAM A U.S. District Court judge in Miami has ruled that Miami-Dade County and the Port of Miami director have illegally prevented a Florida stevedoring company from seeking work at the port by applying an unconstitutional...

Teamsters ratify UPS Freight contract.
April 21, 2008... Drivers and dockworkers employed by UPS Freight agreed to join the Teamsters union in a move long anticipated by labor and management but one in which the competitive effects have yet to play out in the less-than-truckload market. The...

FCBF to honor Feldman.
April 21, 2008... Lenny Feldman, a member of the international trade and customs law firm Sandler, Travis and Rosenberg, P.A., and manager of its Miami office, will be honored as 2008 Person of the Year by the Florida Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association....

CMA CGM (America) LLC names Young manager.
April 21, 2008... CMA CGM (America) LLC appointed Jamie Young to the position of manager, import customer service. She will oversee the daily performance and quality of the import customer service call center. Young brings more than 13 years of industry...

Horizon Lines names Avara CFO.
April 21, 2008... Horizon Lines announced that Michael T. Avara has been promoted to senior vice president and chief financial officer. He succeeds Mark Urbania, who is leaving to pursue other opportunities in the private equity investment area, the...

Dow launches new specialized PR firm.
April 21, 2008... Jim Dow, who spent 20 years covering the international shipping industry as a writer and editor, has started a new public relations firm that specializes in representing companies in international trade services. The new agency targets...

Smith wins regional award.
April 21, 2008... Joe Smith, chairman of the Tampa Bay Partnership's Transportation Initiative, won the annual Future of the Region Awards, a program of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. Smith was selected from five nominees based on his leadership...

Panalpina routes transshipments through Miami Airport.
April 21, 2008... On April 6, Panalpina launched a new service, Palmair, with its business partner Centurion Air Cargo. It offers transshipment connections to Latin America through its gateway in Miami. Miami serves as Centurion's base as well as Panalpina's...

About those tunnels?
April 28, 2008... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam The deadline of July 2007 has long since passed and neither the city of Miami nor Miami Dade County have produced the combined $500 million needed to match the $495 million the state of Florida has set aside to build...

Europe in the springtime.
April 28, 2008... Shipping shifts and power plays abound John Fredriksen, the Norwegian shipping billionaire, has become the biggest investor in the parent of Hanover, Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd, fueling new speculation regarding the future of the world's...

Splitting up logistics.
April 28, 2008... BYLINE: WILLIAM HOFFMAN Deutsche Post World Net's plan to split its $40 billion a year logistics and freight forwarding operations into two units doesn't necessarily signal the German company's intention to sell one or both of those...

Who will buy Hapag-Lloyd?
April 28, 2008... BYLINE: BRUCE BARNARD AND PETER T. LEACH It took Michael Frenzel 10 years to transform a staid state-owned German steelmaker into Europe's biggest tourism group and operator of the world's fifth-largest container shipping company -- and...

EU calls scan-all a trade barrier.
April 28, 2008... The European Union said this month that 100 percent scanning of all containers bound for the U.S. has a high risk of disrupting trade without appreciably improving security. An April 4 letter from Robert Verrue, director general of the...

WTO: Trade growth to slow.
April 28, 2008... World trade growth declined sharply in 2007 and is expected to slow further this year because of financial turmoil and rising commodity prices, according to a World Trade Organization report. Preliminary estimates suggest the volume of...

Senators express concern with first-sale change.
April 28, 2008... Seventeen senators have signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff with their "serious concerns" about a proposed reinterpretation by Customs and Border Protection of a valuation rule. The group, led by Oregon senators...

Panama Canal endures delays.
April 28, 2008... According to published reports, the Panama canal is struggling to control major congestion because transit times have nearly double to a record 53 hours. This has resulted in an average backlog of 93 vessels. As bad as the current situation...

Sears names Crowley a Partner in Progress for sixth consecutive year.
April 28, 2008... Crowley Maritime Corp.'s Puerto Rico-Caribbean Liner services group was recognized by Sears as a Partner in Progress for the sixth year in a row during a formal awards ceremony at the Normandy Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in early April. ...

Merrill Lynch works to refund Kingston debt.
April 28, 2008... The Port Authority of Jamaica is facing a growing debt burden at a time when funding for public projects through bond issues is under stress. According to published reports in Jamaica, the agency is predicting that the situation will...

Hamburg Sud increases Caribbean service.
April 28, 2008... Hamburg Sud has increased capacity on its Mediterranean and Caribbean services to the U.S. East Coast following its acquisition of Costa Container Line. According to a release from the company, Hamburg Sud at the beginning of March began...

Scrambling for the advantage.
April 28, 2008... BYLINE: JOHN D. BOYD Many believe 2008 may be another year of weak volumes. But despite a frigid economic climate, the intermodal industry is starting to heat up. Big railroads and the specialty firms that funnel rail-truck shipments...

Horizon Lines chief backs marine highway plan.(Conference notes)
April 28, 2008... Horizon Lines, which has stated its intention to set up a coastal network of short-sea ships that would carry containers to and from the largest U.S. gateway ports, is working with maritime unions to design a viable labor model for a Coastwise...

Short-sea taking hold, says Marad's Connaughton.
April 28, 2008... BYLINE: R.G. EDMONSON The advent of a container-on-barge service between Hampton Roads and the Port of Richmond, Va., is the kind of project that will help the Maritime Administration demonstrate the value of "marine highways" to the U.S....

Federal antitrust probe of Jones Act carriers widens.
April 28, 2008... BYLINE: JOSEPH BONNEY The government's antitrust investigation into pricing practices in the U.S. domestic routes widened on April 18 with the disclosure that the Justice Department has subpoenaed documents from Matson Navigation Co. in...

Avianca buys Tampa Cargo, plans Martinair Alliance.
April 28, 2008... Tampa Cargo, an all-cargo airline, will be sold by its shareholders Martinair and private Colombian investors to Colombian carrier Avianca, one of the leading passenger airlines in Latin America. In Bogota, Colombia, the parties reached...