Commentary

Annual shipper-carrier contracts in the trans-Pacific trade typically take effect May 1 but many cargo interests are still negotiating beyond that deadline, as they've done in previous years.

First-quarter results offer encouraging news for the container shipping industry.

In good economic times, companies can throw money at the latest and greatest in innovations.

In its new report on a “U.S. DOT Strategic Plan” for the next five years, the Obama administration says it is undertaking a “transformative U.S.

It took the eruption of a volcano in Iceland with an unpronounceable name to awaken us to what should already have been obvious: Air travel is indispensable to world trade.

It’s a popular refrain heard amid the extreme container freight rate volatility over the past 18 months: How can this be prevented?

One of my favorite musicals is “The Music Man,” which begins with a group of turn-of-the-20th-century salesmen complaining about how folks simply don’t know their territories, played

Early summer is a time of optimism, and the bailout of Greece’s bankrupt economy tempts us to believe the global recession is behind us and the breakbulk sector is cycling into recovery.

Consider for a moment the concept that currency is an irrelevant and unnecessary aspect of international sales contracts.

Q: A major parcel/less-than-truckload carrier demands full confidentiality on just about all information regarding service agreements.

In China, the Year of the Tiger is traditionally associated with unpredictability and change.

It may be the most pressing question in the goods shipping business today, more important than concerns over pricing or capacity and probably even direction of your 401(k).

President Obama says increasing exports would increase employment. He’s right. Jobs tied to exports of goods or services pay more than average.

Q: I think I may be in trouble.

In advance of this week’s congressional hearing on a bill to amend federal law to allow ports to implement the type of overarching local regulation of trucking proposed by the Port of Los Angele

Ten years ago, the world avoided the feared electronic Armageddon of Y2K. For many, however, the joy was short-lived.

You have to wonder what Federal Maritime Chairman Richard A. Lidinsky Jr.

A quick survey on the eve of NASSTRAC’s 2010 conference and exposition found “cautious optimism” replacing the exuberant pessimism of 2009.

One of the more common, devalued words in the transportation, logistics and shipping world is “solutions.”

Every 30 years or so, since the early 19th century, rail transportation sees evolutionary changes that come together to push the industry into a new era.

The clouds of volcanic ash that all but shut down European airspace were just the latest reminder of the unpredictability in supply chains.

OK, everyone, it’s time to calm down, take a few deep breaths, close your eyes for a moment and just chill.

Q: We are a manufacturer that ships mostly to grocery warehouses via truckload or less-than-truckload carriers.

In Kenya, exporters in the country's huge flower shipping industry are said to have burned 400 tons of flowers over the weekend because they could not get flights to Europe and the flowers were going

At a recent trade association luncheon, a senior Customs manager from the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach provided some statistics and background about Customs operations.

The great global downturn of 2008-2009 may have been the steepest, most widespread economic decline the world has seen in 60 years, but don’t tell that to Seaspan’s Gerry Wang.

Q: The promotional practices of 3PLs — brokers, if you will — seem to me to be taking some strange and maybe illegal turns.

If I book A FLIGHT with an airline and then don’t show up, I forfeit the fare. If I book a flight and then have to change it later, I pay a fee.

When Maersk Line Chief Operating Officer Marcus Engelstoft opened a shipping conference in London by saying a look back to assess the industry’s economic pain over the past two years was “

Altogether, the threat of global warning, pollution and highway congestion seem to create a tailor-made situation for trucks to be diverted to barges on waterways.

There is a famous scene in the 1967 movie “Cool Hand Luke” in which Strother Martin as the sadistic prison camp warden tells Luke, played by Paul Newman, “What we’ve got

Q: I’ve read there’s a case before the Supreme Court on whether carrier liability for a railroad move under an international through bill of lading involving connecting maritime service sh

Benjamin Disraeli is supposed to have said there are three kinds of lies: “lies, damn lies and statistics.” Mark Twain is the one who says Disraeli said that, however, and some very solid

The nation's top transportation official is making a big push for marine highways, in speeches, in interviews and now online.

The U.S.

Different Companies, Separate Labor Laws

The drama surrounding health care reform seems to have raised the volume of political discourse in the U.S. while lowering civility.

When a Journal of Commerce reporter went to a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week on the pressing issue of what needs to be done to improve the United States’ exporting capabilities, he c

If an iPod can hold a bookcase full of CDs and a Kindle a small library of books, how long will it be before fewer trucks and containers are needed to move these and countless other products that are

Q: In the Jan. 11 and Feb.