P&O Grand-Class pair set for Festival TWO of P&O's Grand-Class 100,000-tonne cruiseships may shortly be earmarked to join the Festival Cruises fleet, once the merger between the two companies, unveiled last week, is completed.
Lord Sterling to advise on UK yards THE UK government has asked P&O chairman Lord Sterling for advice on how British shipyards can break into the market for big tonnage such as cruiseships.
Star considers issuing shares to fund NCL buyout MALAYSIAN-based Star Cruises have expressed a need to issue 200m new shares in order to finance the purchase of the Norwegian shipping group NCL Holding.
Call for greater co-operation CAMMELL Laird's Chris Millman has made a call for closer co-operation between all the parties involved in the financial life of a ship.
Report blames 'confused' officer A NEAR miss between two jets at Heathrow was headline news in the UK last week.
Strong demand makes UK market hot property STRONG first quarter demand from overseas and domestic investors helped the UK property investment market match equities and outperform gilts by a considerable margin.
SNCM bombing attempt foiled after strike action was resolved STATE-owned French Mediterranean ferry operator SNCM said that it was reinforcing security aboard its ships and in its offices after bomb disposal experts disarmed a bomb in front of its Marseilles head office early yesterday - two hours before it was due to explode.
P&ONL reprend le terminal de Mærsk à New York "Notre stratégie consiste désormais à avoir nos propres terminaux à containers aux endroits stratégiques de par le monde, et Anvers figure au programme. P&ONL veut s'ancrer à Anvers et générer plus de cargaisons. Le groupe Grand Alliance sera donc bien présent et à Rotterdam et dans le port scaldien". Tel est l'essentiel du discours qu'a prononcé Leo Berndsen, vice-président de l'armement P&ONL lors de la cérémonie de baptême du nouveau PC "P&O Nedlloyd Mercator"(5.456 TEU), qui eut lieu vendredi dernier au Noordzeeterminal de la Noordnatie sur l'Escaut. La marraine, rappelons-le, était la charmante épouse du gouverneur de la province d'Anvers, Edit Paulus-Verheyden.
Isabelle Durant n'est pas favorable au carburant professionnel La ministre belge Isabelle Durant a ouvert jeudi à Bruxelles le XVIIe Congrès de l'IRU. A cette occasion, elle a expliqué la politique belge en matière de mobilité, qui est le thème du Congrès. En passant, elle a fait une petite déclaration "belgo-belge" qui ne fera pas plaisir aux transporteurs: elle ne les soutient pas dans leur demande de carburant professionnel.
A Surface Transportation Board decision appearing to favor shipper FMC Corp. in a rate complaint against Union Pacific Railroad is "a hollow victory," said an FMC official, and will accelerate captive-shipper congressional lobbying to inject more competition into the rail industry and make STB procedures more shipper friendly. The case does provide some succor for rail captive shippers as it is the first time a shipper of other than coal successfully challenged a railroad rate. The decision also validated the ability of a captive shipper, under certain circumstances, to challenge a so-called bottleneck rate.
A mandatory fuel surcharge payable by shippers to truckers, freight forwarders or brokers when diesel prices surge was proposed in the Motor Carrier Fuel Cost Equity Act of 2000, introduced by the ranking Democrat on the House Ground Transportation Subcommittee, West Virginia's Nick Rahall. A mandatory pass-through would ensure the surcharge reaches "the person responsible for paying for fuel."
To be competitive in the package business, the U.S. Postal Service should create about 40 distribution centers in partnership with the private sector, said John Kelly, USPS president, expedited and package services. Kelly, speaking at the Parcel Shippers Association E-Commerce and Fulfillment Workshop in New Orleans, said he has submitted a plan for such a network to the USPS management group and expects an answer in about a month. If approved, the bids for the venture could take place late this fall, he said.
Trucking interests are laying the groundwork for states to allow 97,000-pound trucks in an attempt to increase capacity and reduce congestion. Although little action is expected on a bill this election year that would allow that, industry leaders are hoping to make a big score in the next Congress. They have history on their side. Every time the industry has had to make a financial concession - as the government's proposed hours-of-service changes would require - truckers have been able to win some type of offsetting productivity gain. Truckers are hoping history repeats itself next year.
One of Michael Ward's first duties as CSX's new vice president, operations, is to put in place a five-step plan to improve operating performance. The railroad will intensify its focus in the areas of safety, cars on line, car velocity, yard/terminal capacity and locomotive utilization. The new initiative comes none too soon, given that CSX is coming up on the first anniversary of its takeover of Conrail June 1. Shippers, meanwhile, are skeptical of new plans - they're just anxious to see better service.
David I. Beatson has left Circle International after nearly two years as chairman, CEO and president to head a new Silicon Valley-based e-commerce venture. Beatson, in his short time at the helm of Circle, restored Wall Street confidence in the freight forwarder, expanded its customer base and sales staff, started a domestic service and significantly upgraded its technology systems. With Beatson departure and the return of Peter Gibert, who headed Circle throughout most of the 1990s, Wall Street is concerned that the company will revert to its old ways of cost-management at the expense of growth. Gibert maintains he plans to carry on Beatson's vision for the company until a permanent leader is found.
The port of Los Angeles reported that it surpassed the 400,000-TEU mark in April, the first time this has happened over a one-month period. During the record-breaking month, L.A.'s total container volume was 407, 032 TEUs, representing a 44 percent increase of 124,286 TEUs compared with April 1999. The April 2000 total breaks the port's previous one-month record of 387,166 TEUs, set last October. It also marks the 12th consecutive month in which L.A. has handled 300,000 or more TEUs. So far this year the port has handled a total of 1,359,459 TEUs, a 33.7 rise over 1999.
Chuck Phillips, an Internet and business-to-business analyst with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, spoke about the future of Internet marketplaces, collaboration among companies and improving supply chains at a conference on freight transport dynamics sponsored by The Journal of Commerce/Traffic World. Many companies have been focused on internal processes at their companies for the past six years, instead of collaboration, he said. The Internet is making it possible for the first time to achieve collaboration and a tighter supply chain, said Phillips, by overcoming three key problems with collaboration among companies: geographical fragmentation; complex, labor-intensive interaction between companies that needs to be automated; and supply-chain issues, such as the need for faster information flow and reducing inventory levels.
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