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Ocean carriers could find themselves under pressure from shippers to revisit long-term contracts as spot market rates tumble on the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trade lanes.

While the number of containers lost at sea jumped significantly in 2020-21, it remained a mere fraction of the boxes moving around the globe annually.

The commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers has endorsed a study about the merits of deepening and widening the Port of New York and New Jersey to allow larger ships to call and reduce wait times.

Yang Ming and HMM are the latest container lines to be brought under the microscope of US regulators thanks to a complaint from an Illinois importer alleging the carriers breached annual service contracts last year.

Despite softening spot rates in some modes, overall supply chain costs are rising, with higher interest rates putting more pressure on inventories, according to the CSCMP State of Logistics report.

The US Supreme Court will allow New York and New Jersey to file legal arguments about whether a 70-year-old compact for joint port policing powers also allows either side to exit the deal.

US retailers’ stockpiling of inventory has not only swelled the number of import boxes sitting on marine terminals and railheads, it has also left thousands of chassis idled with unopened containers on top of them at distribution centers around the country.

The short-term cost of cutting maritime emissions in the Pacific Ocean will be relatively small compared with the market variability of rate levels, according to UNCTAD.

With new incentives, the Port of New Orleans and Louisiana state economic officials are targeting retail distribution centers to ease export-import balance that’s cost the port service and volumes.

An influx of equipment into the Indian market has caused rates to soften, but sources believe prices will climb again next month as the industry enters the traditional peak demand season.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. is bringing a new Asia service to the US Gulf and East coasts and revamping two other trans-Pacific services with additional calls amid slowing, but still growing, imports from Asia.

A new Norfolk Southern incentive program for ocean carriers in New York-New Jersey and Virginia should help grow volume while encouraging a balanced flow of rail cars between inland terminals and the two ports.

The market share of major carriers on the eastbound trans-Pacific fell through the first four months of the year amid the emergence of smaller players who took advantage of the import surge.

Ocean carriers have been looking at how to provide more export capacity to US ag shippers to head off scrutiny from regulators, but OSRA will now put those efforts under a hotter spotlight.

The next logical step in reforming US shipping law – the elimination of ocean carriers’ antitrust immunity – was briefly proposed earlier this year, but shot down due to its potential impact on carriers’ ability to operate within alliances.

FourKites will get access to previously internal shipment data from FedEx to train its predictive visibility system as part of a new planning and problem resolution platform called FourKites X.

The air freight industry is seeing a welcome increase in the urgently needed long-haul belly cargo capacity available to the market as international travel starts picking up.

The congested North Europe hub of Antwerp is having its container terminal operations and inland logistics connections further tested by industrial action.

Softening container rates are expected to pull “spillover” cargo back from the breakbulk sector, but the just-ended COVID lockdowns in China may slow a market normalization.

Global volume data shows a slowing of the container shipping market, and a new forecast does not expect any strengthening of demand this year.

Import automation provider Flowfox is working with some of the largest container lines and global forwarders to adapt its European container release product to US needs.

C.H. Robinson Worldwide says the changing trucking market is driving up demand for automated spot pricing quotes by double-digit percentages.

The head of the Federal Maritime Commission said his agency is ready to enforce new US shipping reform aimed at monitoring carrier behavior around container use charges and export slots.

The White House says US shipping reform will help corral inflation by easing port congestion and more closely monitoring ocean carriers, claims disputed by OSRA-22 opponents.

P.A.M. Transportation’s purchase of Northeastern carrier Metropolitan Trucking is the latest in a string of regional acquisitions by large national companies aimed at expanding services for shippers.

Recent layoffs and delayed public offerings in the logistics technology sector offer clues that economic uncertainty over the health of the freight market is mirrored in the software world.

The US Department of Agriculture plans to help fund additional chassis for reefer cargo at the Port of Houston and to subsidize dray moves to a Port of Tacoma pop-up yard.

CMA CGM Air Cargo will use its parent company’s extensive ocean forwarder network to drive new business as the airline readies for a rapid global expansion under its Air France-KLM partnership.

US producer price indexes show overall transportation costs and total trucking costs moved higher still in May, and S&P Global expects the trend to continue.

Container ship capacity has become so scarce that cargoes are spilling over not only to breakbulk and multipurpose vessels, but to the roll-on/roll-off sector as well.

Robust imports from Asia in May produced a new record, defying concerns about high inflation in the US and COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai.

Some US intermodal shippers are forgoing trains to put their spot freight on trucks because the cost savings associated with rail have narrowed significantly since January.

Paper and forest product exports continue to drop as exporters face delays both at home and abroad getting their goods to customers.

Chain.io has landed an $11 million funding round to expand its basket of logistics-specific integrations to transportation management and operating systems used by forwarders and shippers.

The pending arrival of Amazon’s Dave Clark as CEO of Flexport may signal as much about the forwarder's potential as it does about where it has fallen short in recent years.

West Coast employers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, in a rare joint statement while contract negotiations are under way, pledged to continue negotiations beyond July 1.

Importers in the US are finding higher volumes on the westbound trans-Atlantic are coming with soaring rate levels and record-low schedule reliability, with little relief in sight.

Recent IPI activity shows that despite the focus shifting to railroads ahead of the next West Coast bottleneck, the decisions made by ocean carriers are the root cause of the problem, writes JOC analyst Larry Gross.

Sustained growth in new home construction and remodeling that drove seemingly insatiable consumer demand for household goods last year has continued in 2022.

President Joe Biden has promised to sign ocean shipping reform legislation, but the bill won’t do anything to address US port and inland congestion or the record freight rates he’s railed against.