News

Stay Up to Date with the latest Laufer and Industry News.

A third of the world’s air routes have been lost due to Covid

Before the coronavirus, a decades-long aviation boom spawned a network of nearly 50,000 air routes that traversed the world. In less than a year, the pandemic has wiped almost a third of them off the map. Border closures, nationwide lockdowns and the fear of catching Covid-19 from fellow passengers have…

Nov 13, 2020

Passenger Jets May Play Integral Role in Frozen Vaccine Airlift

Passenger jets will be able to transport coronavirus vaccines at the required ultra-low temperatures as long as they are stored in specially made containers, according to Europe’s biggest cargo-only airline. No plane, even a purpose-built freighter, would otherwise be able to keep inoculations at the minus-80 degrees Celsius (minus-112 Fahrenheit)…

Nov 13, 2020

Seoul summons liners as red-hot transpacific market worries exporters

With transpacific freight rates hitting extraordinary highs and shippers struggling to find slots on crowded boxships, the South Korean government has waded in, determined that carriers do not skip the peninsula in favour of neighbouring China.

Nov 13, 2020

Maersk moves quickly in reaction to criticism of delays in California ports

Maersk reacted quickly to last week’s broadside criticism of the current state of operations in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, releasing a response and setting up a meeting with the Harbor Trucking Association that first aired its members’ issues. The HTA, along with the California Trucking Association,…

Nov 13, 2020

Containers are ‘the new gold’ amid ‘black swan’ box squeeze

Nov 12, 2020
The trans-Pacific eastbound market is in the thick of a record-setting bull run. The California port system is buckling, with delays tying up even more containers and making the equipment shortfall even worse. Imports appear set to remain at peak levels at least through this month, and probably into Q1 2021, due to holiday cargoes and inventory restocking. But shippers can’t get all their cargo to the U.S. if liners don’t have not enough empty boxes in China.
Read More

Inventory roller coaster expected to trend upward after August lows

Nov 12, 2020
Retail inventories have been on a wild ride through the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Inventories bulged when retailers shut their doors and sales stopped as a result of lockdown orders. The retail inventory-to-sales figure hit 1.68 in April, which is the highest its been since 1996. Four months later and retailers found themselves in the opposite situation.
Read More