KTLUK

  An introduction to shipping alliances, and the benefits for freight forwarders and end customers  When you are considering your freight options for getting shipments from one part of the world to another, you might come across mention of global freight and shipping alliances , and wonder exactly what these “alliances” are. Further to the point, why should you – as an end customer – care?  The term “shipping alliance” refers to when multiple ocean carriers enter into a cooperative agreement together.  Forming a shipping alliance – or an “ocean alliance”, as it is also often called – enables the cooperating carriers to make their prices more competitive and broaden their service coverage.  How do shipping alliances work?  A key feature of how global freight and shipping alliances work is that the carriers making up the alliance commit to vessel-sharing arrangements, so that they can cover the largest possible amount of the shipping market. Or to...

  What is meant by ‘multimodal freight solutions’?  The fast-paced, globalised world of 21 st -century logistics is also a highly complicated and multilayered one, with much emphasis placed on the importance of getting shipments swiftly and safely to their intended destinations – no matter how remote and challenging those destinations may be. So, the integrated approach taken by the leading multimodal freight solutions providers is of critical importance when it comes to ensuring goods are transported efficiently across borders, with the minimum of fuss.  An introduction to multimodal transportation  Before we go any further: what do we mean by the term “multimodal freight solutions”? In a freight context, the word “multimodal” refers to situations in which two or more different modes of transport are used in order to move a shipment from one location to another.  An example of multimodal freight would be a given product being shipped by road to the...

  There can undoubtedly be many advantages of arranging freight by sea for whatever shipment you need to have transported from one location to another. Those benefits can include the scope to have large volumes shipped at impressively low rates, as well as to use shipping containers for any further transportation that may be required for the given shipment via road or rail.  However, if freight by sea is something that you have been considering for the shipping of your goods, there are still some potential problems, issues, or risks that you might wish to be mindful of.  Below, we have set out a few of them.  The need to keep costs down   This might seem a curious first inclusion on this list given what we stated above, and it is true that sea freight transportation has long been regarded as the most economical shipping option.  However, in common with almost everything else in today’s world of sticky inflation and high interest rates, freight ...