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The extent to which the rapidly cooling container shipping market is hurting China’s main carriers is likely to be repeated across the industry as reporting season approaches.

Canadian business groups are pleading for Parliament to return to Ottawa and pass back-to-work legislation to end the ILWU Canada strike, but it will likely take days for the upper and lower houses to pass such legislation, if they heed the call.

The carrier is attempting to stem the spot rate slide in a weak demand-high-capacity environment that has seen freight prices fall more than 80% from the record highs of early last year.

The ABF-Teamsters contract is the first of three major negotiations the union is conducting this summer to make it past the finish line, with UPS and TForce Freight talks still ongoing.

The US Department of Transportation is funding infrastructure projects that include carbon neutralization plans, updating miles of century-old rail and improving port access roads.

The carrier accelerated its reach into the direct shipper market during the pandemic when access to vessel space was severely limited, but as demand slows and capacity grows, the company may need to increase its forwarder business.

The pressure is on the Trudeau government to use its political capital to force a deal between employers and longshore workers at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert after the latter began a strike Saturday.

Growing partnerships between software vendors and integrators with expertise in their solutions and their customers systems highlight the importance of the technological plumbing that underpins logistics networks.

In a letter Thursday, less-than-truckload provider Yellow asked President Biden to intervene personally in its dispute with the Teamsters and break an impasse it claims threatens 22,000 union jobs. 

Sustained weakness in demand, excess capacity and ongoing economic uncertainty are undermining the container trade in and out of Europe, making a third-quarter rebound increasingly unlikely.

ChatGPT made so-called generative AI more accessible to the general public, including logistics professionals, and some software vendors believe it will change how humans interact with core transportation systems.

Vessel on-time performance in the eastbound trans-Pacific is improving at West Coast ports, but slipping somewhat along the East Coast.

Time is ticking away for less-than-truckload carrier Yellow, which is suing the Teamsters while its cash reserves shrink, and UPS, which got a new deadline for contract talks from the Teamsters.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is generally viewed within the Canadian shipping industry as having acted too slowly — and weakly — when containerized supply chains were significantly disrupted over the last three years, notes Journal of Commerce Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi.

The railroad said the partnership with the ocean carrier is designed to attract cargo owners who may want to avoid Southern California or are looking for a shorter transit for freight destined for the US Gulf Coast.

The locations were chosen based on their proximity to key rail, airport and port facilities, the partners said.

Despite the subdued market environment, the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges expect rising volumes to place significant demand on capacity and vessel traffic management, prompting investment in both areas.

The union filed a 72-hour strike notice, which includes the Port of Vancouver, claiming maritime employers have refused to negotiate on the main issues of compensation and automation.

US inventory levels are still high, depressing demand for trucking services and keeping a rebound in check, analysts said at the SMC3 Connections conference.

The more aggressive approach to managing ship capacity seen in April and May has waned as new ships enter service and imports possibly see a nominal uptick.

The link would offer an alternative to the Meridian Speedway that pre-merger Kansas City Southern and Norfolk Southern Railway have partnered on since 2006.

The funds will come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with three separate grant opportunities soliciting applications under a single program called the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant program.

Zim said the financial products are particularly needed amid a slowdown in freight demand as small and mid-sized businesses continue to battle significant financial friction.

Union Pacific and BNSF partner COFC Logistics are cutting contractual rates on low-volume shippers through the end of the year in a bid to spur demand in a weakened domestic intermodal market.

Nuvocargo will use the new funding to expand its service footprint to all major over-the-road border crossings between the US and Mexico.

The largest unionized trucking employer in the US is taking its restructuring fight with the Teamsters to court, claiming union leadership is agitating for its demise.

Solid demand from both regions has encouraged the carrier to deploy its own vessels on the Asia-Med trade lane.

Chain.io CEO Brian Glick’s initial vision for the company centered around the idea of making logistics system connectivity open to all vendors to allow shippers and logistics companies to better utilize their software.

With most new trans-Pacific service contracts in effect only since late May, container lines are already nudging shippers to meet their minimum quantity commitments instead of taking advantage of spot rates that have been cratering for approximately three weeks, sources say.

The legislation comes less than two weeks after West Coast waterfront employers and the ILWU struck a tentative deal for a new labor contract after 13 months of contentious talks that saw the union slow down port operations on numerous occasions.

Scrutiny of China’s access to US maritime data is rising, with a US congressman targeting China’s state-sponsored shipping platform in a Defense Department budget amendment.

Methanol will play a leading role in enabling the carrier to meet both its interim and long-term emissions reduction goals as it charts a course for decarbonization.

The IMO’s working group on emissions has gathered ahead of MEPC 80 next week to discuss proposals on the level of ambition required to decarbonize shipping and the measures required to get there.

Carrix, the parent company of terminal operator SSA Marine, said it has agreed to buy Ceres Terminals for its exposure to container business going to the US East and Gulf coasts.

The major eastern US drayage provider is looking to expand its footprint to California and the Pacific Northwest before the end of the year, markets where its major competitors already operate.

After two attempts to push through GRIs largely failed, forwarder sources in India believe it will be difficult for carriers to achieve success under current tight booking conditions, but liners have nonetheless lined up further rate hikes.

While the London meeting of the IMO’s environment committee will revise its 2050 emissions targets, the next critical step is to quickly establish the global regulatory framework to underpin those ambitions.

If the reefer mode can tough out the rest of 2023, next year should be better for operators largely because there will be more cargo, and therefore demand will be stronger, writes analyst Richard Bright.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City is continuing to invest in temperature-controlled intermodal as part of its Mexico-to-US offerings via a new partnership with warehouse provider Americold Logistics.

Lithium-ion batteries are already classified as dangerous goods, but observers say the category needs to be upgraded to reflect rapidly evolving technology that is raising growing safety concerns around their transport.