New international and domestic air trade policies are being devised, by many governments, to increase air cargo services at both domestic and international airports. The objective is to attract air cargo carriers that offer various services for the export and import of all types of domestic and international air cargo.
Authorities are investigating the partial derailment of a freight train early Saturday in South Philadelphia. Inside a CSX Corp. rail yard near 11th Street and Pattison Avenue, the incident took place around 3 a.m. A three-locomotive, 111-car CSX freight train was traveling from Chicago to the Philadelphia area when 11 tank cars containing crude oil came off the tracks. The cars, luckily, had remained upright.
Due to fewer loads available and increasing truck capacity, rates on the spot freight market continued falling the past week.
From Jan. 18 through Jan. 24 flatbeds posted the biggest decline, compared to the previous week. This decline caused them to shed 1.8%, for an average of $2.21 per mile. A decline in the line haul portion of the rate caused about three quarters of this drop, while the rest was due to a lower fuel surcharge. This is compared to a rate of $2.31 per mile for the seven-day period ending Jan. 3.
New vessels are being built bigger than ever and shipping lines are forming bigger alliances to make the most of them. Shipping lines are utilizing larger ships by allowing other alliance members' cargo on their vessels. However, the past few months have left container stacking areas in the quays full and overflowing. In particular Los Angeles and Long Beach have been citing struggles in handling the massive volume of empty containers during this past peak shipping season.
Over the past two months, freight shipping has been slowed down in Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. Shipments have been stuck outside theses ports, some even waiting days before getting the chance to dock. The delays have only gotten worse over the past month, and many factors are blamed for the slow movement of shipments. Large ship sizes straining capacity of the ports, increasingly large amounts of goods, shortage of trucks to haul cargo, and changes in the local rail traffic.
Shippers may have an advantage over truckers in this transportation cycle. The current shortage of qualified and experienced truck drivers is hurting the industry in this freight transportation cycle. Increases in orders, and lack of a decrease in costs of shipping are also hurting the trucking industry.
According to Estes, the nationwide LTL carrier, a stronger US economy is leading to stronger earnings and a busier season for LTL carriers. Estes is the largest privately-held LTL trucking company in the United States and the sixth largest LTL carrier overall. Their management is so confident that the strong numbers will continue, that the company purchased 980 tractors this summer.
When you have hazardous material that needs to be transported, GlobalForwarding.com and its network of over 85 national & regional LTL carriers can help! Our employees are trained experts and can help answer your questions, and make sure that you are in compliance with laws and regulations. It is important to note that state and federal regulations not only apply to the carrier, but to the shipper as well.
Tariffs are essentially agreed-upon rates that a carrier offers to a customer. Tariffs are usually given in the form of a percentage discount, subtracted from the general rates offered to the public. A Tariff will usually govern all LTL shipments given to a certain carrier by the shipper. Using tariffs can become problematic when a shipper has several carrier relationships, and then must compare pricing on each shipment among each of several tariffs.
