Freight forwarder Panalpina plans to add 50 more less-than-container load (LCL) ocean freight network services to reach a total of 500 by end-2014, with intra-Asia continuing to be a major focus.
The company added 41 LCL services last year to total 450 weekly services worldwide as part of its expansion drive. The most recent additions include Santos (Brazil) to Veracruz (Mexico), Dubai (UAE) to Dammam (Saudi Arabia), and Singapore to Casablanca (Morocco).
Intra-Asia will remain a key part of Panalpina’s LCL network, a company statement said. In the past two years, its services in the region were increased to more than 100.
Its busiest LCL trade lane is China to Southeast Asia, followed by those from Asia to Europe, Latin America, the U.S., and Canada. Latin America is another key region for development.
Frank Hercksen, global head of ocean freight, said the strengthening of the LCL ocean freight network is part of a strategy to provide more options to its customers “as the modal shift from air freight to ocean freight continues.”
The majority of the supply chain firm’s LCL services are used by the automotive and manufacturing industries, followed by consumer and retail and fashion customers and then hi-tech and telecoms customers.
Panalpina noted that the latter, particularly consumer electronic clients, have been noticeably moving from air freight to ocean freight as a cost-saving measure.
In related news, the Swiss forwarder announced the launch of an electronic tool that automatically calculates customers’ emissions from the transport services they use based on the reporting standard EN 16258.
This recently introduced European standard includes upstream emissions from fuel production, other greenhouse gases besides CO2, and energy consumption.
The electronic calculator, called EcoTransIT World, will run more accurate reports for customers so they can develop strategies to reduce the environmental impact of their global transport chains.
“With the new system we can run far more accurate and detailed reports and do it much more efficiently than in the past,” said Lindsay Zingg, global head of quality, health, safety, and environment. “Our next step will be to make the tool directly accessible to our customers.”
