Shipping News You Cannot Miss

With the costs for checked bags going up across the industry, flyers might be tempted to simply ship their luggage ahead of them to save money. We suggest getting a rate from: LUGGAGE FORWARD. Cargo fares are going up, too. Northwest Airlines Corp. said Friday it will raise fuel surcharges for its cargo service in certain markets.

It's the third time fuel surcharges have been raised this year by Eagan-based Northwest (NYSE: NWA), which pinned the hike on higher jet fuel prices.

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AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch shipping company negotiated with Somali pirates Tuesday, seeking the release of nine crew members on a freighter that was hijacked in the latest attack on merchant shipping off the coast of Somalia.

Lars Walder, spokesman for the ship's owner Reider Shipping BV, said his company is in contact with the hijackers and "as far as we know none of the crew has been injured or worse."

The crew were four Russians and five Filipinos, he said.

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An investigation has begun after the bodies of two stowaways, thought to be Tunisian men, were found in the hold of a cargo ship at Ayr harbour.

Officers were today checking whether other stowaways were trapped inside the vessel.

The discovery was made yesterday afternoon as the mainly Russian crew on the Pascal was unloading its loose cargo of phosphate, a raw material for fertiliser. It is believed the two men boarded the vessel at least 12 days ago, before it left Sfax in Tunisia.

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Cargo Network Services (CNS), the US arm of IATA, is planning a pilot e-freight program in the US this year despite the fact that only 30 per cent of CNS-endorsed forwarders can exchange electronic messages with airlines.
CNS figures show that 69.1 per cent of forwarders in the US can't submit air waybill data electronically, although more than 99 per cent have access to the internet.

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NAIROBI - Somali pirates have hijacked a Panama-flagged cargo freighter off Somalia as it was sailing to the Romanian port of Constanza, its owner and a Kenyan official said yesterday.

“A ship owned by Dutch Reider Shipping was boarded off the coast of Somalia by pirates... The ship was hijacked in international waters in the Gulf of Aden,” the owners said in a statement.

“The crew members are four Russian officers and five Filipino seamen. All relatives of the crew members have been informed and have been offered every support available.

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Lufthansa Cargo has implemented new handling charges from May 1 on imported cargo.

The new charges, it is claimed, will enhance the entire service chain after touchdown of aircraft for import handling services. The new charges include non-console shipment fee of Re 1 per kg applicable on gross weight, console shipment fee of Rs 2 per kg and minimum charge of Rs 100 per airway bill. However, the trade here feels it is an ‘unfair trade practice’ and wants the airline to withdraw the charges at the earliest. Since Lufthansa Cargo has a market share of nearly 80 per cent, it is taking advantage of its leading position in the air cargo business, according to the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (Fieo).

Lufthansa Cargo, in a circular to its clients, said the levy was to realign its services to the new improved level, and charged along with the delivery order fee. The airline operates a fleet of 19 of its own MD-11F aircraft and has several other freighters on charter covering over 300 destinations.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Air France-KLM on Thursday said it swung to a 542 million euro ($855 million) loss in the fourth quarter on a potential fine over colluding on cargo prices and warned that the current fiscal year's operating profit may drop 29% on worries over oil prices and the health of the global economy.

Europe's second-largest airline said it lost 542 million euros, or 1.84 euros a share, for the three months ended March 31, after earning 44 million euros in the year-earlier fourth quarter. Its annual profit of 748 million euros was well below the 1.19 billion euros compiled in a survey of analyst estimates by FactSet Research.

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SEOUL, May 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea aims to be the 5th biggest shipping power in the world by 2010 with specialized funds and tax benefits that will help local companies expand their fleets, South Korea's Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said on Thursday.

As of May, local shipping companies have ordered 22 million deadweight tons (DWTs) of ships that will be delivered in the coming years, which should be sufficient to push up South Korea's overall ranking by at least one notch, said a government official.

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MOMBASA port is already feeling the impact of last week’s collapse of rail culverts at Jinja, Uganda, which the Rift Valley Railways (RVR) says will take two months to repair.

However, the port management and the RVR have separately announced plans to deal with the cargo pile-up crisis posed by the abrupt cut-off of the flow of goods from Mombasa to the four countries served by the port – Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.

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The Port of Portland handled nearly 1.4 million tons of cargo at its marine terminals in April, pushing its year-to-date totals up nearly 9 percent from a year ago.

Through April, about 5.3 million tons of cargo were shipped through the port's four marine terminals, an 8.8 percent increase from the same point a year ago.


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