PORTS of Auckland in New Zealand has announced an unaudited net profit of NZ$18.6 million (US$15.2 million) for the six months ending December 31, 2011.
The result includes NZ$4.8 million in after tax gains that are not expected to reoccur. Removing those gains, the underlying profit for the first half of the port's financial year amounted to NZ$13.8 million, down from NZ$14 million profit recorded in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue rose by nine per cent year on year to NZ$96.6million, while operating costs excluding depreciation increased by NZ$5.7 million, or 11.5 per cent.
Total container volume during the period under review rose slightly by 0.2 per cent year on year to 454,234 TEU. Within this result, full import container volume grew by 1.7 per cent to 169,557 TEU, which a statement from port authorities said reflected a "relatively subdued economic environment".
First half transshipment volumes were down 6.3 per cent year on year. Bulk and breakbulk volumes stood at 1,897,094 tonnes, up only 0.9 per cent year on year.
The gains reflected in the first half results, which are not expected to reoccur include a change in shipping schedules which created a 20 per cent increase in empties for the period; revenue from salvage services provided during the grounding of the container ship Rena in the Bay of Plenty.
A record number of cruise ships for the Rugby World Cup; a 14 per cent increase in vehicle imports influenced by the Japan earthquake and the introduction of stricter emission standards on Japanese imports from January 1 2012; and prior period taxation adjustment due to timing.
Expectations for the second half of the financial year are described by port authorities as being "uncertain given the costs of industrial action and associated loss of business".
Said port CEO Tony Gibson: "It's been a challenging period for the business. Second half results will be impacted by decreased container volume associated with recent industrial action and loss of the Maersk and Fonterra services."
The port authority has been engaged in a long dispute with the Maritime Union over the port's proposal to introduce flexible docker shifts to prevent wages from escalating.
The row over wages has prompted rolling strikes and lock-outs. However, both parties have resumed negotiations after an Employment Court judge granted an injunction and the port's management abandoned a plan to hire external stevedoring contractors.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
THE Iranian navy rescued Chinese hijacked cargo vessel, the Xianghuamen, from nine Somali pirates near Iran's southern port of Chabahar in the Gulf of Oman, Reuters reported.
The pirates took control of the vessel of the Nanjing Ocean Shipping Company in eastern China during the early hours of the morning en route to the Iranian port of Imam Khomeini after a stop at Singapore following Shanghai port call.
The 28 Chinese crewmen hid in a cabin of the Panama-flagged cargo ship while the pirates broke down the doors brandishing guns and axes, ordering the captain to sail the ship towards Somali waters.
The Iranian frigate opened fire after requests to stop were ignored which led to the crew shutting the engines down and six jumping into the sea. Under fire the pirates surrendered and the crew was rescued.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
INDIA's top three container terminals have defied the Tariff Authority for Major Ports (TAMP) regulator's order to cut rates by ignoring the deadline for their reduction, reports Live Mint-Wall Street Journal.
TAMP "notified" the rate cut of 44.2 per cent in February to be applied by Gateway Terminals India at Mumbai's JN port after the firm sought a rate hike of 8.7 per cent. Gateway Terminals is an Hague-based APM Terminals, a unit of Denmark's AP Moller Group, which also owns Maersk Line.
"We haven't yet started billing the new rates notified by TAMP," said a top executive at Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT), the facility run by Dubai's DP World at Mumbai's Jawaharlal Nehru (JN) port.
One shipping agent told Live Mint that the terminals in an agreement with shipping lines, their main customers, not to charge them the lower rates and settle bills later. "The idea is to see if they can get a stay order from the courts. Then they need not apply the new rates," the agent said.
The issue puts the spotlight back on the powers of TAMP, the regulator for ports controlled by the government, but even an agency spokesman said: "TAMP has no powers to enforce its own orders."
In February, TAMP notified a rate reduction of 12.3 per cent at Chennai International Terminals when the terminal had asked for a hike of 15 per cent. Chennai International Terminals is owned by Singapore's PSA International.
At least three Mumbai-based executives from three shipping lines confirmed that they have not been billed the new rates, but declined to be named.
On March 23, the Delhi high court dismissed petitions filed by three terminal operators seeking a stay on the rate cuts ordered by TAMP on jurisdictional grounds. But the Delhi court told Gateway and NSICT to seek redress at the Mumbai high court and Chennai International Terminals were told to go to the Madras high court where their respective terminals are located.
Said a TAMP spokesman: "No courts in the country have granted any stay against the TAMP order to cut rates at these facilities. So the TAMP orders have come into effect as per dates specified in the gazette."
And that would be February 23 for Gateway, February 29 for Chennai International Terminals and March 16 for NSICT, he said.
PK Agrawal, chief executive officer of Gateway Terminals, did not respond to calls seeking comment and PSA declined to comment too, said Live Mint.
The Container Shipping Lines Association (CSLA) lobby group said: "We are recovering THC only on an actual basis. We are not making any money out of this. There is no profiteering going on."
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
GERMANY's Hamburg Sud has celebrated the naming of its containership 7,100-TEU Santa Teresa at the Cruise Terminal in Rotterdam, the seventh newbuilding of a series of 10 identical vessels which feature 1,600 reefer slots.
This is one of the largest ships ever built for Hamburg Sud, noted the Shipbuilding Tribune. Following her delivery at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in Korea in September, the Santa Teresa initially operated in Hamburg Sud's service between Asia and South Africa/South America east coast.
In January, it was then phased into the shipping group's Europe-South America east coast service. The ship was named after a town in the Brazilian province of Espirito Santo, west of the port city of Vitoria.
The Santa Teresa is the only ship of the Santa series to be christened in Europe. All other nine sister ships of this class were, or will be, named in South America or Asia. The last three ships of this series - the Santa Ursula, Santa Barbara and the Santa Ines will be delivered in summer 2012.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
ANOTHER day of a 48-hour Greek dockers strike against austerity programmes launched as a condition of the country's financial rescue have brought ports to a halt, reports London's Containerisation International.
With the country heading towards a fifth straight year of recession and domestic demand shrinking, a disruption of its trade could be disastrous, said the report.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
A VIETNAMESE ship carrying 60 containers of auto parts sank off the shore of southern Vietnam after a collision with a Thai vessel, according to VietNamNetBridge.
The 16-member crew of the Truong Hai Star was rescued and authorities salvaged 30 containers, said the report. Most containers carried auto parts. The sunken vessel is reportedly worth US$2 million.
The incident comes after a cruise ship collided with a containership in fog off the Vietnamese coast on March 16. The Silver Shadow, operated by Silversea Cruises, sustained minor damage, and the cargo vessel was badly damaged, according to CNN.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
GERMAN owner Hansa Shipping and Chinese shipyard Jiangsu New Yangzi Shipbuilding have decided to equip four new 4,800-TEU ships with the German ballast water treatment technology "CleanBallast" developed by RWO, a subsidiary of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, reports MarineLink.com.
The technology is scheduled for the delivery over the course of 2012. Incidentally, Veolia also owns Hong Kong Tramways.
"We have picked RWO knowing that we are dealing with a sensitive and important task for the future," said Dejan Golub, superintendent of Hansa Shipping.
"RWO has long and comprehensive knowledge, as well as sustainable experience in marine water processing. Therefore, we are absolutely convinced that we will have the right partner in achieving excellent performance," he said.
"We trust that the technical solution of the RWO system, using a reliable, powerful and redundant filtration system, together with the well proven electrochemical disinfection unit, will bring us the benefit of meeting even stricter requirements than the present ones," said Mr Golub.
To complete the water treatment system of the new vessels, Hansa Shipping has also decided to install RWO's WWT-LC plants for onboard sewage treatment, as well as its oil-water separators SKIT/S-DEB to ensure best results in treating oily water, the report added.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
HONG KONG's Asia Airfreight Terminal (AAT), the airport's second ground handler, posted four per cent year-on-year increase in March cargo volume to 65,929 tonnes, the company announced.
March exports increased five per cent to 47,270 tonnes year on year while imports were up four per cent to 18,114 tonnes with transshipments falling 21 per cent to 545 tonnes.
Year to date, cumulative export tonnage from January to March was 113,665 tonnes, up 0.1 pr cent year on year. Total import tonnage for first quarter was 53,181 tonnes, up five per cent. Transshipments fell 19 per cent year to date to 1,553 tonnes.
"The tonnage in March saw slight improvements. Nevertheless, we are cautious of the challenges ahead," said AAT corporate development chief Kenneth Yeung.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
TAIWAN's Mandarin Airlines has launched direct flights between Wenzhou, a city in eastern Zhejiang province, and Taipei, reports Xinhua.
An E90 aircraft carrying 97 passengers took off from Wenzhou Yongqiang Airport at 1322 hrs, marking the inauguration of the twice weekly service.
The direct route takes 80 minutes, making it the shortest between the mainland and Taiwan. Previous routes, via cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou, took six hours, according to a statement from Yongqiang Airport.
Twenty thousand people travelled from Taiwan to Wenzhou last year as tourists, visiting relatives or on business with 30,000 from Wenzhou going to Taiwan at the same time.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
IBERIA pilots are staging on-again off-again Monday and Friday strikes to protest the entry of cut-rate subsidiary airline from entering the market.
The strikes have resulted in Spain's largest airline suspending 156 flights from the first of the week, reports the Prensa Latina news agency.
Strikes will continue on Mondays and Fridays until July 20, which have resulted in 148 routes being cancelled for April 13 and another 152 for April 16, according to Iberia.
The pilots, members of the Spanish Union of Airline Pilots (SEPLA), who already staged 12 strike days between December and February, have now announced their new walkout schedule.
SEPLA opposes Iberia Express, a low-cost subsidiary that started up short- and medium-range flights on March 25.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
AIR INDIA is seeking to expand its ticket sales and distribution network globally by appointing general sales agents (GSA) in 56 countries, reports the Press Trust of India.
The GSAs would be appointed worldwide, sources told PTI, adding that strengthening of the distribution network across the globe would help the carrier boost its international sales.
They would have an initial contract for five years, which would be subject to review every year.
Following the 2008 global downturn and mounting losses, the cash-strapped airline had shut down a large number of its overseas offices (operated by the airline itself) to cut costs.
Keeping the high costs of running a full-fledged office in many countries, this time round, the airline is going for more GSAs in these countries, the sources said, adding only 10 countries would have online offices.
But now with its much-awaited INR180 billion (US$3.5 billion) financial restructuring plan getting the nod from the State Bank of India-led consortium, Air India is trying to revive its fortune both by cutting costs and creating additional revenue streams.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
SUPPORTERS of the stalled China cargo hub at St Louis, Missouri, are sidestepping sceptical state legislators to revive the project, reports the St Louis Post-Dispatch.
St Louis County plans to create a US$3 million fund designed to induce freight flights to Lambert-St Louis International Airport after financial deal in which the county will pay for the freight incentives by diverting casino tax revenue from local flood-ravished street repairs for which it was earmarked, leaving the state to pay for that with federal flood relief funds.
This is part of an effort to revive four-year-old aspirations to create the cargo hub, an effort that fizzled after the first and last China Cargo flights arrived from Shanghai only to withdraw when the prospects of an agreed tax holiday disappeared.
The new fund is a scaled back version of the old Aerotropolis tax credit plan, which would have set aside $60 million over eight years to reduce the cost of flying goods overseas. The credit was designed to make shipping from Lambert cheaper than from Chicago O'Hare, where most Midwestern air freight takes off.
The bill died in last fall's failed special legislative session, and shortly after Air China Cargo began cancelling its flights.
Casino tax revenues "don't have the same regulatory issues associated with them" as flood-relief grants, said Denny Coleman, president of the St Louis County Economic Council.
The one-time cash will pay for a pilot project that supporters estimate would support three flights a week for a year. They hope to build a case for St Louis freight routes - to the cargo industry and to state lawmakers.
"A lot of us believe it'll work," said New York-listed Emerson Electric president Ed Monser, who is working on the project. Emerson Electric designs and supplies technology and engineering in industrial, commercial and consumer markets.
But Democrat County Councillor Steve Stenger was doubtful. "I'm 100 per cent in favour of developing a hub for international cargo, but this plan has boondoggle written all over it. The hub is dead one minute, and then the next we see these back-channel manoeuvres involving streetscaping money to fund these unsustainable flights?"
Republican County Councillor Greg Quinn also had doubts. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to use $3 million to pay freight forwarders when you don't have a plan in place to back it up."
Staff from Lambert and the Regional Chamber and Growth Association say they will drum up interest in St Louis among exporters and the cargo industry.
"We'll still go after China, but we export all over the world," said Lambert director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge. "This has to include the UK, South America and India. It's a broad look at trying to bring cargo activity here."
Republican state Senator Jason Crowell, who has opposed the scheme from the start, said: "I wouldn't do it, but I'm not on the council there. It's a local decision."
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
GHANA's air freight industry has received a boost with the addition of a Saudi Airlines Cargo weekly flight with airline vice president Peter Scholten expressing confidence of a positive operations to come during an inauguration ceremony in Accra, reported GhanaWeb.com.
"We see growth opportunities here. We will start with one flight a week and increase the number of flights depending on the business growth," Mr Scholten said.
"Ghana is an emerging market with enormous business potential for air cargo. The addition of this new destination will help us to increase our activities in Africa, where we already operate scheduled B747 freighters from Saudi Arabia to Nairobi, Lagos, Addis Ababa, N'djamena, Khartoum and Johannesburg," he said.
In attendance was the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Ghana Hesham Meshal Swailem al-Sowalem, who said Ghana's cargo industry will experience enhancement in its level of operation with the introduction of Saudi cargo with its high international quality aircraft.
"The role of Saudi cargo is to bridge the world to the Africa especially Ghana, West Africa and the Middle East," said Mr al-Sowalem.
Air Ghana managing director of Air Ghana Michael Maguire said his company is looking forward to developing products in Ghana and finding markets for Saudi Cargo in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
"We have been talking to them for a long time, explaining the potential, showing them the infrastructure being put in place by the civil aviation and Ghana Airport Company to improve the airport," Mr Maguire said.
He said the introduction of another cargo airline will provide Ghanaian exporters with more choices in bringing goods into the country.
Also in attendance was Ghana Civil Aviation Authority managing director Air Commodore Kwame Mamphey. Others included the ambassadors from Pakistan, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
Yesterday, Chief Commercial Officer of Schiphol Group Maarten de Groof and Lovers Company director Karel Lovers launched 'Schiphol behind the scenes': a multimedia bus tour that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the airport. This spectacular tour gives access to places at the airport that visitors would not normally see, such as the fire service, the snow clearance fleet, the cargo aprons with their large hangars, and the terminal for private jets. Even the old air traffic control tower has been included. The tour has been specially designed for young and old, day-trippers, tourists and passengers arriving or transferring at Schiphol.
About Schiphol behind the scenes
When boarding the bus, passengers are made to feel that they are entering an aircraft thanks to sounds from the air traffic control tower, the welcome screens and their boarding passes. A video presentation then takes visitors through Schiphol operations, explaining everything that needs to be done to allow air traffic to run at Schiphol. This includes information on the terminal, the runways, flight paths, runway maintenance, baggage and the bird control units.
Past anecdotes also feature regularly, such as the fact that the first flight in 1916 was a military flight, that cargo was also transported during the first passenger flight in 1920, and that there are three different theories on the origin of the name 'Schiphol'.
In short, Schiphol behind the scenes is much more than just a guided tour: it is a way to experience the dynamic nature of the airport.
Schiphol behind the scenes - itinerary
Schiphol behind the scenes starts and ends at Schiphol Plaza, and takes just over an hour. The tour goes past the take-off and landing area towards Schiphol East, along the old air traffic control tower, passes the aircraft hangars, continues on to the snow clearance fleet and fire service post in Sloten, and from there returns to Schiphol Plaza.
Tickets and prices
For the tour schedule and ticket sales, please visit www.schipholbehindthescenes.nl.Tickets can also be purchased at the airport, in the Arrivals hall or beyond passport control at Holland Boulevard between piers E and F. Adults pay €15, children aged 4-12 €7.50. A 10% discount applies to tickets purchased online.
Source Hugin Online
2012-04-12
For the busy Easter travel period, Latvian national airline airBaltic saw increased passenger interest in the carrier’s destinations in Europe, Middle East, and Russia/CIS.
For the Easter holiday and this week, the Top 10 destinations of airBaltic are the following:
1. Barcelona
2. Paris
3. Moscow
4. Berlin
5. Munich
6. Amsterdam
7. Vienna
8. Rome
9. Tel Aviv
10. Kiev
These Top 10 destinations enjoyed high demand from passengers starting their journey from popular origin airports in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea region.
As announced previously, airBaltic entered the summer season with an increased number of flights in its network spanning Europe, Middle East, and Russia/CIS and returning leisure destinations on the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Caspian coast. By increasing flight frequencies, airBaltic will improve its service to both local passengers, and those travelling in transit via Riga. The summer schedule of airBaltic also features a number of leisure destinations coming back from hibernation, including Venice, Athens, Budapest, Nice, Dublin, Chisinau, along with other cities on the Mediterranean, Caspian and Black Sea coast.
airBaltic will increase its Riga- Vienna service to 12 weekly flights, up from 7 last summer; the flight will be operated in cooperation with Austrian Airlines. Riga-Zurich flights will be operated daily, as a result of improving frequency from 6 to 7 weekly. airBaltic will also offer 12 weekly flights on the Riga-Munich route, up from 7 last summer. airBaltic will increase its Riga- Amsterdam service to 12 weekly flights, up from 7 last summer. Riga-Brussels flights will be operated 12 times weekly, an increase from 7 times the previous summer. airBaltic will increase its Riga- Billund service to 7 weekly flights, up from 5 last summer. airBaltic will increase its Riga- Moscow Domodedovo service to 7 weekly flights, up from 2 last summer; flights will be operated in code-share with Transaero Airlines. airBaltic offers four daily flights to Moscow Sheremetyevo in code-share cooperation with Aeroflot.
Source AIR BALTIC CORPORATION
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