Our global freight forwarding network keeps our customers freight moving across the world.

Amazon's Miami runway disaster exposes fragile seams of air cargo's contract carrier model

Key takeaway: Five dead after a 21 Air-operated 767 freighter overruns MIA's runway, and the questions for the cargo supply chain are only beginning. A Boeing 767-300 freighter bearing Amazon Prime Air livery overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, smashing through perimeter fencing and striking multiple vehicles on the ground. Five people are confirmed dead and five more injured, according to the FAA and Miami-Dade County officials. The aircraft, operated by 21 Air as Flight ...

APMT takes another look at Nigeria's Badagry port development

On a prime ministerial visit to Denmark this week, Nigerian officials signed a memorandum of understanding with APM Terminals to develop a new greenfield container terminal at Badagry. "The agreement commits the parties to exclusive negotiations to explore the development of Badagry Port, where the deepwater capacity would be transformational in strengthening Nigeria's role as a leading gateway port in West Africa and creating significant new transhipment opportunities. "By enabling larger container vessels to call Nigeria, the project would support growth, greater supply chain resilience, and new trade opportunities. APM Terminals is committed to carrying forward development of Badagry," APMT said. The proposed facility is located on the south-western outskirts of the country's commercial hub of Lagos and would add to the three terminals already serving the sprawling conurbation - APMT's Apapa Container Terminal, CMA GCM's Lekki Free Port, and the Tin Can Island facility jointly operated by Zim, China Merchants, and MSC's regional port operator, Africa Global Logistics. In truth, the Badagry project has been on the drawing board for well over a decade - APMT first declared an interest in 2012 and, according to the original schedule, was due to begin for operations in 2016, as Alphaliner noted this week. "In 2012, a consortium led by APM Terminals with Orlean Invest, Macquarie, Oando, Chagoury Group and Terminal Investment Limited announced plans to build the new greenfield port, whose first phase was due to open in 2016 with 6,500 metres of quay and 39 ha of yard." But it has sat in abeyance ever since, understandable during a period when Nigeria was beset by sectarian violence, political and economic turmoil, as well as an outburst of regional piracy. However, from a purely port industry perspective, the main problem for APMT was the development of nearby Lekki, initially under the ownership of Filipino operate ICTSI, starting in 2012. It finally began operations in 2023, although by that time ownership had changed as it had been acquired by CMA CGM and its sometime financial partner, China Merchants. Alphaliner reported: "East of Lagos, the new Lekki port opened in 2023 and its container facility the Lekki Free Port Terminal (LFPT), which is controlled by the French shipping line CMA CGM. In addition to this, MSC plans to develop a new container terminal at Snake Island, near Lagos Tin Can." However, the picture is radically different today - as analysed by Loadstar Premium in June, the container shipping trades serving Nigeria and the wider West African trades have been showing some of the sharpest volume growth rates ever seen in container shipping, propelled by a slew of belt and road investment by Chinese firms over the past two years, and served by a range of new container terminals that have allowed carriers, MSC in particular, to deploy ultra-large box ships to the burgeoning China-West Africa route. However, in terms of port development for this new era of trade, Nigeria has lagged its regional neighbours - as evidenced by the fact that MSC's flagship AFL service, where vessels have an average capacity of 17,300 teu, according to Xeneta's eeSea liner database, does not feature a single call in Nigeria, preferring to unload in MSC-controlled terminals in Tema, Lome, Abidjan, and Kribi. According to eeSea, MSC's Tin Can Island facility has a capacity of just 700,000 teu, while Apapa offers 1.2m teu and Lekki 2m teu, and would suggest that a market with Nigeria's considerable potential could now easily accept fresh terminal capacity. "APM Terminals is keen to contribute to Nigeria's economic growth and position as a trade hub in West Africa," said APMT MD of Africa & Europe Igor van den Essen. "We believe further investing long-term in our concessions in Apapa and Onne helps doing that, and we were pleased to have a constructive dialogue about this today. "Additionally, developing Badagry as a greenfield project will further ease congestions in city ports and further open new opportunities," he added.

Bullish Robinson getting 'through the fog of war on Montgomery and Lipe'

Citi analyst Ariel Rosa had quite a few good questions for the management team of CH Robinson (CHRW) at the bank's 2026 Global TMT Conference held yesterday. (The management trio - CEO Bozeman, CFO Lee and Rajan, the AI tech guru - were as usual upbeat about what will come next; there'll be more coming from them at the 2026 Jefferies Global Industrials Conference taking place today.) The last five minutes of the call, however, were by far the most interesting as ...