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In April, freight company HLS Group reported 80 canceled sailings from China as trade tensions with the U.S. To keep operations and supply chains stable amid the volatility of today’s global trade dynamics, companies need a freight strategy that can flex under pressure. Take the example of a U.K.-based intensified.
But in the context of the Shippers Council, the shipper is the cargo owner (or BCO beneficial cargo owner), usually a manufacturer, who contracts with a logistics service provider (LSP), which, in the Councils definition, can be a transportation (land, sea, air) company, an express company, a forwarder, or a full-fledged 3PL.
In 2017, Maersk’s encounter with NotPetya malware required a full infrastructure rebuild and delayed cargo worldwide. Environmental Monitoring in Sensitive Freight Cold chain logistics, chemical shipments, and electronics distribution increasingly rely on real-time temperature, humidity, and shock sensors.
If your business depends on freight shipping, you've likely felt the effects of a world that seems to change overnight. When tariffs rise, fuel prices spike or international trade agreements shift, those cause ripples across all freight modes — truck, air, rail and ocean. Natural disasters. Tariff swings.
to discuss the evolving landscape of cargo theft that continues to plague the freight industry. While straight theft (the physical taking of trucks, trailers, or cargo from where they’re parked) remains the most common form of cargo theft, criminal tactics have shifted in the last few years.
For the past few years, the air cargo market has greatly benefited from international e-commerce. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), 80% of e-commerce is transported by air and makes up upwards of 30% of total air cargo volume. Rethinking supply chains is a reader-supported publication.
International cross-border e-commerce is typically transported by air cargo. However, as air freight rates climb and capacity tightens and questions regarding the future of US de minimis, interest in ocean freight services is on the rise. Whereas Alibaba’s service offers cargo that can be shipped to any warehouse or store.
The company operates in environments where noise and hazardous materials pose constant risks, including handling hazardous materials or high-value cargo. Sysco was another example of using technology to boost safety and efficiency. Samsara’s geofencing mitigates risks like cargo theft, prevalent in high-risk areas like Tijuana.
While passenger electric cars have seen widespread adoption, transitioning the freight industry to electric trucks has proven to be very challenging, for multiple reasons. So let’s dive right into the major challenges standing before the green and electric freight truck revolution.
Some suppliers only offer generic models, while others provide crates tailored to specific cargo types. For example, open-slat crates work for lighter loads that don’t require full enclosures. The more options a supplier offers, the easier it is to match crate design to your cargo’s weight, shape, and fragility.
Crowley has been named a winner of the prestigious 2025 FreightWaves Fraud Fighter Awards, recognizing the company’s innovative approach to combating increasingly sophisticated freight fraud schemes. According to Crowley, the most dangerous threat in today’s freight industry is “the rise of identity theft and synthetic carrier profiles.
DHL Group, based in Bonn, Germany, said the investment, which aims to increase capacity and network efficiency, spans its express delivery, freight forwarding, contract logistics and e-commerce units in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Some of DHL’s investment in the region began in 2024. .
In an industry where phone calls remain the dominant channel for booking freight, WireBee has emerged as a pioneer in protecting brokers from increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts. WireBee aims to combat several prevalent types of freight fraud that are both common and costly.
Recognized as a winner of the 2025 FreightWaves Fraud Fighter Awards, Tive has established itself as a leader in combating freight fraud through advanced supply chain visibility solutions. The company’s approach centers on a critical factor that they identify as the greatest threat in freight fraud today: awareness. “In
Postal Service (USPS) transitioned its primary air cargo contract from FedEx to UPS effective September 30, 2024. The OIG, for example, found packages identified as HAZMAT mistakenly entering UPS’ network. UPS “The USPS air cargo business fits beautifully with our strategy to grow our B2B business.
A trucking entrepreneur, Malcolm McLean recognized the inefficiencies of traditional cargo handling methods and saw an opportunity for innovation. By standardizing container sizes, typically 20 or 40 feet in length, he introduced a level of uniformity that revolutionized cargo handling.
These are just a few examples of the constraints under which shippers work to bring much-needed goods from the mainland into Hawaii. This control is particularly useful if you’re shipping specialized freight. Cold-chain shipping, for example, is extremely complicated in Hawaii, subject to climate concerns as well as intense regulation.
Another example of AI’s effectiveness occurred within a leading transportation and logistics company with nearly 450,000 trucks and 150 locations. In this case, gen AI gathers insights from this data, while agentic AI autonomously adjusts sourcing strategies for supply chain risk mitigation.
s introduction of a universal 10% baseline tariff, for example, may appear a manageable challenge at face value. For example, a business that can accurately model the impact of new tariffs may decide to maintain customer prices temporarily, absorbing short-term cost increases to preserve relationships while competitors scramble to adjust.
Blockchain Has Meaningful Impact on Finance as well as Freight Shipping: Heres the How and the Why What Even Is Blockchain? Transparency and Efficiency Freight shipping involves multiple parties at every step of the process. Why Should You Care? It allows for certain actions to be taken automatically once conditions are met.
Limited Transparency A prevalent challenge in supply chain management is the lack of transparency in operations, often leading to operational losses due to disruptions like cargo theft, fuel theft, and rerouting. This enabled them to enter the lucrative market of cloud computing solutions.
In sectors where product assortments shift throughout the year, for example, AS/RS may require different bin sizes to accommodate new inventory, while P2G operates independently of bin structures, allowing for seamless transitions. 3PLs, for example, rely on contracts with customers that can change over time.
Delayed starts cause missed loading windows, lost dock appointments, and costly premium freight. Calculate driver downtime, missed dock windows, expedited freight expenses, and potential contractual penalties. It’s more like the first domino in a very expensive line-up. In logistics, disruption compounds rapidly.
The beverage industry offers a valuable example. Establishing baselines, tracking reductions, or meeting compliance requirements without having accurate, standardized data becomes nearly impossible. It’s resource-intensive by nature, with emissions stemming from agriculture, water use, packaging and outsourced production.
Koganti gave the example of the Greeks’ response to the news that the Persians were on their way to invade in the fifth century BCE: Athenian politician and general Themistocles’ response was to urge the building of a navy (which turned out to be devastatingly effective ).
Apples Siri and Amazons Alexa are personal-use examples of these, but from a business context, their uses are just starting to be implemented. Featured Product Popular Stories End to De Minimis Slows Flow of Air Cargo from China to U.S. There are also what Wood describes as "the new kids on the block" — generative AI and agentic AI.
So argues Greg Petro, CEO of First Insight , a retail platform that uses AI analysis of consumer feedback to predict demand, determine pricing thresholds and model scenarios around, for example, differing tariff levels or supply chain bottlenecks.
For example, they can support managers by processing large amounts of data, then analyzing proposed decisions to address complex operational and tactical challenges. For example, a dispatcher is responsible for purchasing components for pre-production and stocking of two new products.
More concerning, we found that manual processes have an average error rate of 4-6%, which may seem small until you consider the impact on a $50M+ freight spend. The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) has become the industry standard for container freight rate tracking, providing transparency in a historically opaque market.
A key example is guided selling — a dynamic form of product search that asks users a series of questions to help winnow down the catalog to a manageable set of products that meet their exact specifications. With the rise of ChatGPT, the popular conception of AI has been that of a program that a user prompts, then receives a response.
of freight by weight in the country. The business vertical is thriving, with 592,286 long-distance freight trucking businesses operating in the US as of 2023. After all, your vehicles, drivers, and cargo are on the road for an extended time, translating into greater risk. It should be tailored to meet specific business needs.
For example, RFID-enabled medications can be scanned quickly and accurately at multiple points in the medication lifecycle. When interoperable with electronic health records, billing systems and regulatory frameworks, they reduce friction and streamline compliance workflows. But software alone isn’t enough.
Chokepoint Vulnerabilities and Rising Freight Rates Maritime transport has chokepoints. The Suez Canal, for example, is crucial for energy and cargo shipments moving between Asia and Europe. An example of this would be building or expanding inland ports. Avoiding this Canal means going around the Cape of Good Hope.
They can abandon outdated forecasting models, for example, by ensuring that strategic external data points that impact consumer demand are integrated into their operating models. And for large enterprises, even small efficiency improvements can quickly translate to millions in savings or additional revenue.
Trucking companies can be liable for accidents due to various factors, including vehicle maintenance, driver training, hours-of-service compliance, cargo loading, and intentional law violations. Numerous examples of case law exist where trucking companies have been held liable for accidents caused by poor vehicle maintenance.
In this contract, the ship owner provides a vessel and crew for a specified voyage or set of voyages, and in return, receives freight, usually on a per-ton basis. The charterer can decide the type of cargo, loading, and unloading points, and other specifics of the voyage, making it a tailored solution for maritime transport needs.
For example, setting internal benchmarks for racial representation in leadership or offering programming limited to particular identity groups are likely to be challenged as contrary to EO 14173 and unlawful under Title VII.
For example, Trump threatened tariffs and sanctions on Colombia to punish it for earlier refusing to accept military flights carrying deportees as part of his immigration crackdown. De minimis shipments account for 92% of all cargo entering the US. I wear a number of hats these days.
Sourcing raw materials from Asia, coordinating freight with European logistics providers, or navigating distribution networks in the Americas cross-border operations rely on effective communication to make them happen. This served to dampen container buildup and accelerated the transit of time-sensitive cargo.
Maersk, for example, uses blockchain to track shipments, reducing documentation errors by 20%. A McKinsey report found that AI adoption in supply chains cut inventory costs by 15% for early adopters in 2024. Blockchain is also gaining traction for transparency and compliance with tariff regulations.
For example, if the price of steel or wood has gone up, adjust the prices of products made with those materials. And figure out the right pricing based on cost increases and market conditions. However, pricing adjustments shouldn’t take the form of across-the-board increases. Focus on the specific products most impacted by the tariffs.
See More Bad News on US Cargo Theft.) Click here to send us your comments In response, the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) has just released a framework it says can help shippers, carriers and brokers fight back against the growing and increasingly sophisticated threat of digitally enabled cargo theft.
– May 7, 2025 Update The Freightos Weekly Update keeps you informed on international freight with key economic data, demand trends, and rate insights. Home Blanks keep rates level; no de minimis air rate collapse yet; US-Houthi truce first step to Red Sea return? Name This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Home April 16, 2025 Update The Freightos Weekly Update keeps you informed on international freight with key economic data, demand trends, and rate insights. For freight, last weeks reciprocal tariff roll out resulted in reports of a widespread drop in container bookings out of Asia.
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