Parsifal Corp. reports: New relocation bookings were strong for the first months of 2020. However, COVID-19 government shutdowns started heavily impacting corporate global relocation bookings this year in the third week of March. New bookings continued to slide worldwide through approximately mid-April for international shipments and mid-May for U.S. domestic bookings.
‍
During this crisis, international and domestic bookings generally dropped off by 30 to 55 percent across all industry segments in the mid-April to mid-May time frame.  Is there good news? Yes, international bookings have been improving week over week since mid-April and U.S. domestic bookings started an upward trend in the last two weeks as well.

Unless more unforeseen events occur, it appears that the COVID-19 booking bottom has passed, creating a more optimistic business outlook for the weeks and months ahead in 2020.

It was reported today by the America Trucking Associations (ATA) thatcompared to 2019, the truck tonnage for April decreased by 12.2%. While asubstantial decline was expected, this was the largest monthly decrease since1994, 26 years ago. (Read More)

‍
TransportTopics also reported the portsin the US show continuing declines for 20 foot-equivalent container (TEU)volumes with some well in to double digits. The report offers examples of portmonthly year-over-year volume decreases including the Port of Oakland at a 6.5%drop and the Port of Long Beach at a 17.2% decline.

Cancelled sailings by shippers into U.S. ports are at a high in May and June at 19% and 18% as reported yesterday in FreightWaves. However, if the current July schedule holds for a lower 10% “blanking”(canceling) on sailings, this could be a “positive signal on demand” going forward in the third quarter and beyond. Information about July cancellations will become apparent very soon as the notices for blank sailings into U.S.ports for early July will be coming in by the first part of June.

‍

HMM (rebranded from Hyundai Merchant Marine) held a naming ceremony on Thursday for its first and world’s largest 24,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) container ship, the ‘HMM Algeciras’. The vessel is longer than the combined length of four football fields. A total of twelve vessels of this class size are scheduled for delivery by September 2020 from DSME and SHI (Samsung Heavy Industries). HMM is planning to augment environmental capabilities with these vessels as they are basically equipped with a scrubber system (per IMO 2020 environmental regulation), as well as improved hull design and highly-efficient engines for energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions.

Airlines have been repurposing passenger jets over the past few weeks in the wake of the COVID-19 negative impact on passenger travel.American Shipper reports that United airlines has recently operated nearly 300 cargo-only flights between Europe and the U.S. Lufthansa is planning to remove passenger seats on some of their jets to allow more space for cargo, adding 25 cargo-only flights this week, along with 35 more weekly flights next week together with Austrian Airlines to service Europe and Asia. Read more about how other airlines are following this trend in order to deal with the major impact of dramatic losses due to declining passenger revenues.

‍

The Indianapolis-based Wheaton Group has announced the acquisition of Arpin Van Lines this week, as Arpin now joins a group of five relocation brands along with Wheaton World Wide Moving, Bekins Van Lines, Stevens Worldwide Van Lines (acquired in February 2019) and Clark & Reid. Inside Indiana Business reported on Monday that this acquisition deal does NOT include Arpin International Group and other Arpin divisions.