The MSC certified Scottish Pelagic Sustainability Group (SPSG) North Sea herring fishery has entered MSC re-assessment in order to maintain its certification beyond 2013. MSC fishery certificates last for five years and – for a fishery to maintain its certificate – it must be reassessed in time for the expiry of the original certificate.
Claire Pescod, UK Fisheries Outreach Manager for the MSC says, “This is great news from a key fishery in Northern Europe. The SPSG’s stalwart support for the MSC has been a real driving force for the organisation in the region, with the four SPSG fisheries in the MSC programme accounting for 98% of SPSG’s annual catches of around 220,000MT. This is great timing from the SPSG – coming so closely after the certification of the West of Scotland herring fishery – and they have allowed themselves plenty of time to get the fishery recertified for its 2013 deadline.”
SPSG Chairman, John Goodlad said: “Our decision to seek re-assessment of our North Sea herring fishery illustrates the ongoing commitment of SPSG to the MSC program. North Sea herring was the first fishery we had certified and our experience of certification has been such that there was never any question that we would not seek re-assessment of this important Scottish fishery.”
The SPSG North Sea herring fishery supplies key markets across Eastern and Northern Europe, Russia and former Soviet Republics with filleted frozen herring. Fishing takes place during summer months – starting in June.
The assessment will be carried out by independent certifier, Food Certification International. Anyone with a stake in the fishery is invited to take part. If you would like to be involved, please contact Martin Gill at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Source MSC
Accolades for German carrier from Air Cargo News and Hellmann
Lufthansa Cargo stood out once more as the best European cargo carrier at the “Cargo Airline of the Year Awards”. As in previous years, thousands of international forwarders again voted for the carrier as the best of Europe’s cargo airlines. At the Gala Awards night held in London, Thomas Egenolf, Director Italy & Malta, accepted the award on behalf of Lufthansa Cargo as well as additional accolade as best cargo carrier on Asia/Pacific routes.
The British Air Cargo Media Group has conferred the coveted awards for 29 years. “This year Lufthansa Cargo has had to contend not only with a general market slump – but also the damaging news of the introduction of a night-time ban at its busy Frankfurt hub. Undeterred, the German carrier has continued to outpace its rivals, particularly in Asia and Europe, stated Air Cargo News managing director Nigel Tomkins.“
Thomas Egenolf emphasised that the award was above all an incentive to continue convincing customers by delivering the topmost quality. At the London presentation ceremony, he reaffirmed that the air cargo industry is and remains a highly competitive business. “Staying up front in the industry is only possible with high quality products, an extensive network and excellent service. Those will remain our aims in the future.”
Lufthansa Cargo’s quality has also won recent acclaim from Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. Theglobal logistics provider presented its European Award to the Lufthansa airfreight subsidiary in Wiesbaden. Hellmann branches across Europe had evaluated cargo airlines on the basis of six criteria, on which Lufthansa Cargo outperformed its global competitors.
Source Lufthansa Cargo AG
The EU project ‘Amber Coast Logistics’ went down extremely well with representatives of the eastern European transport and logistics sector at the TransRussia Transport Exhibition. Considerable discrepancies in terms of infrastructure in the new and old EU member states and Russia represent a challenge for the project.
Moscow, 24-27 April: “There is still a lot of unused potential within the transport and logistics sector, above all in Russia and Belarus,” declared Sebastian Doderer, head of project development at Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM). Port of Hamburg Marketing is a leading partner of the EU project ‘Amber Coast Logistics’ (ACL), which was presented for the first time to an international audience within the scope of the ‘TransRussia International Transport and Logistics Exhibition and Conference’, the largest transport and logistics trade fair in Russia. The aim of the project is to promote multi-modal transport connections and logistics centres in the southern and eastern regions of the Baltic Sea. ACL was a co-representative on a joint Port of Hamburg booth.
Infrastructure differential between East and West
Within the scope of the ‘Logistics and Supply Chain Management’ series of conferences at TransRussia, Doderer informed leading transport and logistics sector experts of planned Amber Coast Logistics activities. Many representatives of the eastern European transport and logistics sector emphasised the importance of developing the transport and logistics infrastructure in the Baltic region. Considerable discrepancies in terms of quality and availability are evident, especially between the new and old EU member states and Russia. This gap needs to be breached. The number of cross-border cooperative measures dedicated to, for example, the development of infrastructure, is insufficient and many areas suffer from an extremely low level of accessibility. Within the scope of the ‘Amber Coast Logistics’ project, these problems will be analysed and the commensurate solution proposals and strategies developed. As such, in cooperation with other companies, Maris Katranzi, a management board member at Riga Container Terminal GmbH – in turn a member of the ACL project partner Latvian Logistics Association – is planning to create intelligent transport solutions for regions with a low level of accessibility.
Three work packages to improve accessibility
A total of 20 project partners from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Denmark, Belarus and Germany are participating in the ‘Amber Coast Logistics’ initiative. Their aim is to develop multi-modal logistics centres around the Amber Coast region and its natural hinterlands, the Baltic States, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. To achieve this goal, the partners are working jointly on three work packages: the ‘Flow of goods and institutional aspects’ package involves, amongst other things, analysing what influence laws and regulations have on transport organisations and flows. The action undertaken primarily serves to determine the current situation. A plan of action to promote multi-modal transport structures will be conceptualised within the ‘Sustainable and efficient transport concepts and multi-modal transport chains’ work package. The ‘Regional logistics integration’ work package ultimately builds on the outcome of the previous two packages, effectively putting the results of the conceptual phase into practice.
Source PORT OF HAMBURG
Dry bulk and liquid cargo handling capacities will be increased to a combined 20 million tons per year; multi-purpose quay will be extended 1,200 meters as the “Salalah Hub” establishes itself in the region.
Salalah, Oman- Oman’s Ministry of Transport and Communications has awarded a commercial bid representing investment of OMR 55 million ($143 million USD) to more than double the Port of Salalah’s general cargo handling capacity. The project will increase dry bulk cargo handling capacity to 20 million tons and liquid cargo to over six million tons annually. The current annual general cargo handling capacity is 5.5 million tons.
“The general cargo business has been growing rapidly here, and this new expansion will play a significant role in serving the continued development of businesses in Oman and the surrounding region” stated Port of Salalah’s CEO, Peter Ford.
The Port of Salalah, astride the major global shipping lane between Europe and Asia on the Gulf of Oman in the Arabian Sea, holds a strategic position for transit cargoes to the upper Arabian Gulf, Indian sub-continent, Red Sea and East African markets. Salalah was the 2rd-largest containerport in the Middle East Region in 2011 with volume of 3.2 million TEUs. In its 14th year of operation, the Port of Salalah will handle its 30 millionth TEU this month with the first eastbound call of the G6 Far East/Europe string.
“We are very grateful to the government of Oman and particularly the Ministry of Transport and Communication for their vision, insight and support in helping the Port of Salalah achieve this tremendous milestone of 30 million TEUs” said APM Terminals Africa-Middle East Regional CEO Peder Sondergaard.
The Port of Salalah is part of the APM Terminals Global Port, Terminal and Inland Services Network, with APM Terminals holding a 30% share in the Port, 20% held by the Government of Oman, and the remaining 50% held by institutional and private investors.
The planned expansion of the general cargo terminal includes the construction of an additional 1,200 meters of multi-purpose berth with 18 meter draft and liquid commodity loading facilities. The new liquids terminal will significantly expand Salalah’s role in handling such key industrial commodities as fuel, methanol, Monoethylene glycol, and caustic soda. Major dry bulk commodities handled at Salalah include limestone, gypsum and cement as well as plastics.
“We are committed to making the resources available to enable Salalah to assume a major role as a regional hub for liquid and general bulk cargoes, in addition to containers, as we meet the growing demands for increased economic activity in the Dhofar region and the growing international investment projects in Oman” said Mr. Ford.
Source Port of Salalah
KOREAN AIR has posted a first quarter year-on-year operating loss of KRW114.7 billion (US$101.4 million) drawn revenues of KRW2.88 trillion, which increased 5.9 per cent.
The loss was attributed to the rising price of jet fuel."Compared to the same period last year, there was increased traffic across all routes, including Oceania (up 23 per cent), south east Asia (up 18 per cent) and China (up 14 per cent). While Korea outbound traffic maintained at last year's level, overseas outbound reported an increase of 16 per cent," said the statement accompanying the results.
Cargo volume fell 9.6 per cent to 2,059 million freight tonne kilometres (FTK) as it decreaseD 12 per cent in domestic service and nine per cent. A decrease in outbound cargo was also reported.
"As many China-based airlines have been drastically stepping up cargo capacity, the airline is facing increasingly intense competition in China market," said a company statement accompanying the results.
"As global economy recovers, Korea outbound is expected to show gradual increase. Looking onward, the airline strives to stabilise the business against high and surging fuel price through capacity control and fleet redeployment," said the statement.
In addition, with the introduction of new routes (Incheon-Gatwick and Incheon-Nairobi) and stepping up frequency on selected routes, such as Incheon-Ulaanbaatar, Incheon-Danang, Incheon-Tianjin, Incheon-Vancouver, Busan-Beijing and etc, the airline sees potential growth in passenger traffic.
With the Free Trade Agreement between US and Korea and London Olympics, the outlook for potential growth in cargo traffic in the remaining quarters of the year remains positive, said the statement. "The airline will also strengthen profitability through route operation plan, and will continue to seek sustainable growth in the existing network as well as expanding into new markets.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
UPS PILOTS have petitioned the US Court of Appeals against the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) exemption for cargo pilots from new rules stipulating passenger pilot rest requirements.
The cargo pilots said the FAA decision was based on wrong "cost-benefit" analysis that treats cargo differently from passenger operations under the new rules.
The court has ordered the FAA to respond by May 24.
Independent Pilots Association (IPA) lawyer William Trent said he hoped the court would "order the FAA to reconsider the inclusion of cargo operation rules consistent with its mandate from Congress and laws requiring adequate notice and opportunity for public comment.
"The FAA acted contrary to Congress' mandate when the agency published new pilot duty and rest rules in December excluding a vast and growing segment of US commercial aviation - cargo," said Mr Trend.
"Congress specifically directed the FAA to address the problem of pilot fatigue by issuing new rules based on the best available science.
"The FAA initially agreed, stating that the old rules 'are inadequate to guard against fatigue and present an unacceptable risk to the public.' Yet the same agency, under intense cargo industry pressure, abruptly made a 180 degree turn and left cargo pilots under the same set of flawed rules that the FAA and Congress found lacking."
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
DUTCH quick delivery company TNT Express, being taken over by UPS, says it has experienced poor conditions in Europe, and a continued weakness on the Asia-Europe trade lane.
TNT Express' Asian operations, as a whole, performed well, supported by a good performance in Australia and on-plan performance for its domestic services in China, reports the UK' s Transport Intelligence. Its other previous problem area, Brazil, was also strengthened.
The company's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) division saw first quarter revenues fall 0.5 per cent to EUR1.1 billion (US$1.4 billion) year on year. Average kilorammes per day increased for international economy, but declined for both domestic and international express.
Asia Pacific revenues increased 2.6 per cent to EUR430 million and Americas revenues by 5.4 per cent to EUR118 million. EMEA profits plunged 34 per cent to EUR68 million as a result of negative yield and cost inflation. Although Asia Pacific remained in loss at EUR7 million, it improved marginally. The Americas' losses were reduced to EUR23 million from EUR152 million in the same quarter in 2011.
Said TNT chief executive Marie-Christine Lombard: "As announced at the beginning of the year, the first quarter of 2012 has been challenging, given the ongoing sluggish business environment. In Europe, cost savings and commercial initiatives are being pursued to mitigate revenue pressure. Profitability in Asia Pacific improved, despite weak inter-continental demand. Americas also improved, with better results in Brazil."
Management also stated that in the short term these weak conditions were likely to persist.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
According to the data of Main Dispatcher Service of the port 2.3 mil tones of cargoes were handled in April 2012, and 9.02 mil tones in total during 4 months of 2012. Specialty of the first 4 months of 2012 is stable growth of dry cargoes handling.By the end of April this rate amounted 5.9 mil tones, which is 1.1 mil tones more (+23.3%) than in January-April 2011. It became possible due to increase of handling of grain - 2.03 mil tones (+1.5 mil tones compared to January-April 2011) and ferrous materials – 1.5 mil tones (+223.7 thousand tones compared to January-April 2011).
Source The port of Odessa press-service
London / UK, May 3, 2012 – A new airside service at Heathrow airport has been launched by Kuehne + Nagel to enhance its critical spare parts logistics offering to the aerospace industry.
The new solution means Kuehne + Nagel is even better positioned to meet the unique challenges an Aircraft on Ground (AOG) situation presents. It allows engineers to remain on stand with the grounded aircraft while Kuehne + Nagel experts deliver parts directly to them in a matter of minutes, increasing their productivity and helping to reduce aircraft downtime.
A new facility located at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 supports this service. Storage of critical spare parts at the airport itself allows deliveries to be made to stand at any of the currently operating airport terminals within a 15 minute lead time. Supply to the airside facility is managed by Kuehne + Nagel’s 5,000m2 airfreight hub at Uxbridge, Middlesex, with seamless access through airport security controls, thanks to Kuehne + Nagel’s status as a regulated agent.
As part of its global ‘Supply the Sky’ offering, Kuehne + Nagel has spent many years developing services to meet the critical issue of spare parts availability, including the provision of dedicated handcarried deliveries for AOG situations. Many of Kuehne + Nagel’s customers have come to rely on this service, and welcome the new development at Heathrow.
Daniel Lerch, Manager AOG Management for SR Technics commented, “Delivering material directly on stand during an AOG situation is crucial for an efficient recovering of an aircraft. Very often the last mile of the handover to the customer is the most difficult part in the whole supply chain if it comes to airside delivery. Handling agents are out of their service hours and nobody can be reached to bring the part to the engineers. Kuehne + Nagel is closing an important gap by providing this new service at LHR and we are hoping that they will be able to expand their service to other stations.”
Chris Edwards, Senior Vice-President Airfreight for Kuehne + Nagel North-West Europe said, “By working in close cooperation with our aerospace customers we have gained a deep understanding of their business and challenges. Based on their feedback, we have responded with a new service that is tailored to meet their requirements and also perfectly complements our market-leading Supply the Sky portfolio of products.”
Source Kuehne + Nagel
2012-05-04
Member Only advantages make travel more affordable to families
Wizz Air, the largest low-fare, low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe, announced today that it has lowered the yearly membership fee of the Wizz Xclusive Club to just €29.99. The Wizz Xclusive Club was launched in 2011 and already reached over 200,000 members. All club members have access to special low fares on each booking made. The members’ benefit can also be extended to family members at no cost and Wizz Air believes its investment in growing the Xclusive Club benefits small groups and families travelling together since they have access to even lower Wizz Air fares through the club’s membership.
To celebrate the lower Xclusive Club annual membership fee of just €29.99 Wizz Air has launched a one day 20% off campaign for all bookings made tomorrow (Fri 6 May) by Xclusive Club members.
“Wizz Air’s Xclusive Club is our way to show families how to beat the recession and book their holidays on wizzair.com with savings up to €10 per flight, per passenger. Wizz Air has lowered the membership fee to €29.99 and club members can book discounted fares for themselves and up to 9 fellow travellers. On top of the year around discounts only available to Xclusive Club members, tomorrow (Fri 6 May) all club members can book Wizz Air flights with an additional 20% off all fares. Families who want to beat the recession should join the Xclusive Club today”, said Daniel de Carvalho, Corporate Communications Manager at Wizz Air.
Source Wizz Air Group
Kongsberg Maritime completes delivery of advanced offshore operations simulator
Superior Energy Services of Houston, Texas, took delivery of one of the most advanced maritime training simulators ever developed, in April 2012. The next-generation simulator from Kongsberg Maritime will be used to provide integrated, real-time training for Superior’s offshore marine personnel at its new facility in Anchorage, Alaska. Under the terms of the contract, signed September 2011, Kongsberg Maritime supplied Superior Energy Marine Technical Services with a full mission trainer in support of critical operations including ship bridge maneuvering and navigation, anchor handling, ROV operations, crane operations, process control, containment, and controlled pumping and flaring of hydrocarbons.
The system supports the full spectrum of offshore Simultaneous Operations (SIMOPS) activities in support of developing best practices for both surface and sub-sea marine practices – all conducted in real time and in the safety of a simulated environment. The simulator features two full offshore service vessel bridges, with 360 degree field of view, an offshore crane simulator, supplied by KONGSBERG company, GlobalSim, a DeepWorks ROV simulator, supplied to KONGSBERG by Fugro Subsea Services Ltd and a separate Process Simulator, for operator training and control system checkout in addition to multiphase flow simulation, supplied by Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies.
Superior’s working relationship with Shell Offshore was a primary motivator in establishing this state-of-the-art facility. Superior is committed to achieving a safe work environment and these core objectives were incorporated in the system design: “At Superior Energy Services, we believe in ensuring our people are as prepared and properly trained as possible. It makes sense from a safety perspective, from an environmental perspective and from a business perspective – it is simply the right thing to do,” said Captain Scott Powell.
“Partnering with Kongsberg Maritime provided a depth of engineering capability that allowed us to mirror a physical model-based simulation solution. This is the closest we can come to creating realistic scenarios without facing these circumstances first hand. Our people will be the best prepared in the industry and will have full confidence in the critical skills they will learn with this state-of-the-art simulator. This multi-team training capability will have a net positive effect on our preparedness and our commitment to health, safety and the environment,” continues Powell.
The KONGSBERG Offshore Vessel Simulator allows companies to train employees for the highly technical and often hazardous operations they will encounter in the offshore environment. Kongsberg Maritime simulators are designed to provide realistic scenarios for a wide variety of environmental applications.
Source Kongsberg Maritime
- Order intake at prior-year level
- Revenue up slightly
- Commercial Vehicles: Weaker core markets of Europe and Brazil offset by other regions
- Operating profit impacted by increased competition in stagnating markets
- Power Engineering remains stable earnings driver
- Free cash flow dominated by acquisition in India and divestment of Ferrostaal
- Outlook for full-year 2012 confirmed: Slight decline in revenue, return on sales roughly in line with long-term target average
Following its strong performance in 2011, MAN's business continued at a similar level in Q1/2012. Headwinds came from the increased competition in stagnating markets. However, the slump in commercial vehicle demand that had been widely feared failed to materialize.
Order intake in the Commercial Vehicles business area actually rose slightly by 1% compared with the prior-year quarter, to €3.4 billion. MAN Truck & Bus recorded a rise of 2% to €2.5 billion, whereas orders at MAN Latin America declined by 2% to €0.8 billion due to the introduction of the Euro V emission standard. Orders in the Power Engineering business area amounted to €1.0 billion (previous year: €1.1 billion), €0.9 billion of which was attributable to MAN Diesel & Turbo. The Engines & Marine Systems strategic business unit in particular was weaker.
MAN increased its Q1 revenue by 3% year-on-year to €3.8 billion. MAN Truck & Bus was particularly successful, climbing 6% to €2.1 billion, despite the slight overall decline in the European commercial vehicles market. However, MAN benefited from growth in Russia and in other, non-European regions. Revenue at MAN Latin America declined slightly by 2% to €0.8 billion. Q1 revenue in the Power Engineering business area rose 5% to €1.0 billion. MAN Diesel & Turbo increased by 3% to €0.9 billion, while Renk jumped 25% to €105 million.
The MAN Group recorded an operating profit of €253 million in the first quarter (previous year: €325 million). The 22% decline is due above all to increasing competition in the stagnating markets in the Commercial Vehicles business area. As a result, the operating profit at MAN Truck & Bus amounted to only €67 million (previous year: €97 million), while that at MAN Latin America was €80 million (previous year: €99 million). MAN will combat this with measures to increase its profitability and efficiency. By contrast, earnings at MAN Diesel & Turbo and Renk remained stable at prior-year levels.
Overall, the MAN Group's return on sales (ROS) amounted to 6.6%. The ROS in the Commercial Vehicles business area declined to 5.0% (6.9%), while Power Engineering remained at a high 12.9% (13.3%).
One of the MAN Group's critical success factors is its uncompromising focus on the areas of transportation and energy, which continue to offer excellent growth potential. Demand in these sectors is constantly growing in the emerging markets in particular. Our BRIC strategy addresses precisely this topic and has allowed us to secure timely access to these key markets of the future. In many cases, our operations in these promising markets have already reached a stage that others are still aiming for. MAN will continue to exploit this head start.
The joint projects within the Volkswagen Group will also assist in this. Volkswagen AG notified MAN SE on April 13, 2012, that it held 73.00% of the voting rights as of the April 12, 2012, trading date. The new opportunities to work together with Volkswagen and Scania offer MAN additional momentum. By cooperating in the areas of procurement, development, and manufacturing, we can leverage the synergies needed for a full-scale competitive push.
Although MAN is expecting solid growth on the global transportation and energy markets in the long term, we continue to see global economic growth weakening in 2012. Against this backdrop, we are confirming the outlook we gave at the beginning of the year: We expect full-year revenue in the Commercial Vehicles business area to decline slightly by up to 5%, whereas Power Engineering revenue should increase by 5%. Given the overall predominance of the Commercial Vehicles business area, we expect revenue for the MAN Group as a whole to decline slightly, which will also lead to a drop in operating profit. Return on sales will correspond roughly to the long-term target average of 8.5%.
Source MAN SE
FREIGHTGATE-8, dnata's newest terminal located at Dubai World Central-Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC), has announced that air cargo volume rose 700 per cent during the last financial year, reports Dubai's Arabian Business.com .
Air cargo throughout at the dnata-operated air cargo terminal, which opened in June 2010, amounted to 127,665 tonnes while the total number of active cargo flights handled by the dnata team was 2,832 for the financial year, a 600 per cent growth compared to the previous period. The new facility currently handles local and sea-air export and import cargo as well as transit cargo at DWC.
One of the most recent highlights included flying a purpose-built gas turbine to Nigeria. With a total weight of 95 tonnes, it was the heaviest single piece of cargo ever handled by any of the dnata FreightGate terminals.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
RUSSIA's Volga-Dnepr Airlines, one of the two air cargo companies of Volga-Dnepr Group specialising in chartered freight services, has delivered two hydrant dispensers for aircraft refuelling from Ankona, Italy, to Nairobi, Kenya, said the company statement.
"Hydrant dispensers are mobile stations designed for aircraft refuelling and each weighs five tons and is more than seven metres long. The loading operation was assisted by aircraft winches as the fuel hydrants were driven onto the aircraft under their own power," said the airline.
The delivery was carried out by using one of the airline's IL-76TD-90VD aircraft for its long-term partner, the UK charter specialist Chartersphere.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
HAWAII's environmental freight fee tax has been quashed by a US District Judge David Ezra in a permanent injunction denying the state the right to collect money for invasive species inspection, or levy quarantine and eradication fees from customers who import cargo.
Air Transport Association of America (ATA) filed a lawsuit in 2010 to rule that the Hawaiian Freight Fee Law, as applied to air carriers, is pre-empted and prohibited by the Anti-Head Tax Act and the Airline Deregulation Act.
According to a report from Pacific Business News, carriers Hawaiian Airlines, Pacific Air Cargo and Aloha Cargo Agency Services did not participate in the lawsuit but collected the fee.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
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