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.

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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.

As the primary fuel for trucking, diesel pricing continued to drop another 7.3 cents yesterday according to Transport Topics News as reported by the U.S. Department of Energy. As expected, the trend of excess global production and falling demand also continues along with a drop in oil by 15%. TTNews explains that diesel prices dropped across all regions (lowest in the Gulf Coast) along with providing current average prices per gallon for fuels and more discussion on current global causes.

It was reported Wednesday by American Shipper that the Asia to U.S. transport cost for containers has increased by double digits so far this year as compared to same period in 2019. At the same time, however, it was explained that this rate momentum would not continue going forward.
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Transport Topics also reported earlier this week that truck tonnage in the U.S. increased by 2.6% in February compared to 2019 year-over-year. In addition, the For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index provided by the ATA rose 1.8% in February over the previous month of January. Learn how ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello explains these numbers and additional outlook.

The U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety heard testimony this week from American Trucking Associations (ATA) president, Chris Spear ashe expressed priorities and important steps for increasing highway safety and job opportunities, as well as fixing infrastructure in the US. Mr. Spear pointed to general speeding and texting as a major cause for large truck crashes rather than truck driver-related factors. Learn more about his support for the bipartisan DRIVE-Safe Act and the billions of dollars of cost to trucking and other drivers due to aging infrastructure in need of revitalization at...