Commentary

Although we all hope for a strong economic recovery in 2010, it is increasingly clear West Coast ports and the trade industries that depend on them won’t be recovering to their previous peaks an

A few clients and several business friends have asked for my views on where 2010 is heading, and my stock answer is, “If I knew that, I’d bottle it, sell it and be very active in the buyin

It’s often said that incidents such as the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight provide a wake-up call.

With the rising cost of operations, tough decisions lie ahead for the entire air freight industry that will affect capacity on a global level. However, as the U.S.

Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, was referring only to seaports but could just as easily have been speaking for the entire industry when she wrote in her commentary for

Battered by the economic downturn, the U.S. industrial real estate market faces its greatest challenges in decades.

It may be easier to talk about the things we know will happen in 2010 than to try to guess what might be coming.

This year’s Annual Review & Outlook comes at a critical time not only in the transportation and shipping world but also in the broad trading economy.

For the first time since Armstrong & Associates began tracking the U.S. third-party logistics market in 1995, revenue declined on a year-over-year basis.

Simply put, 2009 was the worst year in container shipping history.

Under attack from seemingly every side, is 2010 a Waterloo for the freight transportation industry?

Following the cyclical upturns in ECRI’s leading indexes, the U.S. economic revival has begun to gain strength despite lingering skepticism about its viability.

Wal-Mart Stores is quickly setting the tone for the shipping industry in the New Year by working to cut even deeper into its transportation and logistics spending.

The idea of scanning 100 percent of ocean containers coming into the country didn’t get what could be termed a ringing endorsement recently.

Q: As a long-time reader of your column, I must admit I rarely disagree with your advice and assessment of a question.

The celebration of the new year is a time-honored tradition across centuries, going back at least 4,000 years to ancient Babylon.

American workers face a jobless recovery, and more stimulus spending won’t fix what’s broke.

Transportation is all about scale, right? It’s a basic lesson buyers, sellers and even a few journalists learn about the fundamental mathematics of shipping.

When Europe deregulated liner shipping in late 2008, some shippers hoped the U.S. would quickly follow suit. They trusted the U.S.

Q: I’ve read with much interest your columns regarding so-called BMC-32 motor carrier insurance, because I recently tried to invoke payment of a claim under the BMC-32 endorsement.

Human generations are defined in 25-year increments. That is the average time it takes for each generation to mature and start the next generation.

As 2009 winds down, many trade professionals wonder what 2010 will hold in terms of regulating the movement of goods in and out of the country.

Welcome to the end of 2009! Without doubt, the turning of the page from the year just ending to the year about to start will come as a relief to everyone.

To borrow a truism from the real estate industry, the top three topics for business closing out 2009 are, in no particular order, the economy, the economy and the economy.

Cap and trade carbon dioxide if you like, but A.P. Moller-Maersk wants to ship it.

As the Teamsters and environmental groups continue with their all-out push to change the dominant business model for port trucking, they’ve won statements of support of several politicians calling for

Whether or not you agree that melting sea ice or the presence of strange weather is a result of human activity, governments of the world’s largest countries have accepted scientists’ basic

Q: My company, a DOT-licensed, bonded and insured transportation broker, is embroiled in a claim scenario that may cost us a good customer and probably the amount of the claim, even though we have no

Susan Kohn Ross’s well-written article in the Oct. 19 JoC, “Due Diligence Gets Its Due,” made several key points. One was that the U.S.

It may seem a long way from Santiago, Chile, in 1992 to Copenhagen in 2009, but in these days of globalization it’s a distance that’s all too easy to travel.

The big question for the international shipping industry 2010 is what kind of cargo volumes we'll see next year.

Evidence is mounting that China is leading the world out of the global recession, but is China’s recovery, like the halting improvements in the U.S., for real or an unsustainable product of gove

Q: I’ve been in the transportation business almost 40 years, 35 years at the same company. We sell to many major retailers.

With its dependence on fossil fuels, the transportation industry is certainly an interested party as the U.N. Climate Change Conference convenes in Copenhagen next week.

Vampires may be all the rage in popular culture this year, but in the business world there’s nothing these days that beats zombies.

When people gather to talk about the Port of New York and New Jersey, conversation almost inevitably turns to the port authority-owned Bayonne Bridge.

Container shipping lines are responding to the recession in different ways. Some are struggling to survive.

Is it possible the spectacular growth of China’s container trade is coming to an end?

Q: I represent a SHIPPER that used a major motor carrier for part of its LTL operation.

We all know shippers face significant challenges in today’s economy.