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A platform to challenge 'death by a thousand [D&D] invoices'

For smaller drayage businesses, even small bills can threaten their survival, while the cost of hiring lawyers or dedicating staff to lengthy complaints processes often makes fighting individual invoices uneconomical. She has designed Provar, which approaches its first anniversary in December, a platform to address that imbalance by collecting and preserving the evidence needed to challenge improper charges. It documents terminal conditions, appointment availability, and empty-return restrictions, preserving evidence to establish whether operators had a reasonable opportunity to collect or return containers during periods in question. Provar covers terminals in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, and Seattle. Users submit their active containers, allowing the platform to automatically identify the relevant terminal and compile the supporting evidence. A dispute function helps users easily prepare formal fee challenges by combining invoices, dispute reasons, and supporting documentation into a downloadable PDF letter for submission to the shipping line. The platform also incorporates digital integrity verification to help establish that the underlying evidence has not been altered, addressing concerns about the reliability of evidence submitted in disputes. Ms Dandan said the aim was to make challenging charges viable for businesses of every size, rather than leaving operators to absorb costs because the administrative burden outweighed the invoice. "Whether you're a humongous trucker with thousands of containers, or whether you only have a dozen, it's still the same principle," she said. "It empowers them to do more and do it more effectively." However, she warned that shipping lines' evidentiary requirements were becoming "increasingly demanding", with some requiring documentation of empty-return restrictions extending beyond the date of the disputed charge. FourOneOne has introduced a 'plus one' feature to document those conditions in advance. Ultimately, Ms Dandan believes that making disputes quicker, cheaper, and better supported by objective evidence could also change behaviour among shipping lines.

Air cargo growth masks freighter squeeze as fuel price outpaces yields

Rising airfreight yields have failed to keep pace with soaring fuel prices, squeezing freighter economics despite a sustained period of strong demand growth, according to Rotate. Speaking at TIACA's Air Cargo Forum in Miami this week, CEO Ryan Keyrouse warned that the strength of the global market concealed sharp differences in the financial performance of individual tradelanes and flight directions. Rotate's presentation showed fuel prices up 111% year on year in the final week of September, compared with a 26% increase in global air cargo yields, using Xeneta yield data. Fuel prices fell during the Middle East ceasefire, before rising again, while yields had broadly stabilised. "Airlines are feeling quite a bit of pressure when it comes to fuel prices, right now," said Mr Keyrouse. The pressure was particularly acute for freighter operations, he added. Rotate's modelling of Boeing 777 freighter economics showed the gap between revenue and costs narrowing as fuel became more expensive. "Some tradelanes are indeed quite negative at this point, with what's happening with fuel and yields," he said. The company's estimates for September illustrated the directional divide: Asia-North America 777 freighter flights generated a positive contribution of $2.55 per kg, against a negative $2.12 per kg in the reverse direction. These are modelled flight contributions, rather than reported airline profits, but underline the importance of assessing the economics of the wider network. "We all know that you make money coming one way, lose money going the other. That margin is tightening, so it makes network planning quite difficult these days," said Mr Keyrouse. Yield increases also varied considerably by market. Europe-Middle East yields were up 56% year on year in the final week of September, against +30% for Asia-North America and +24% for Asia-Middle East. Europe-North America recorded a 19% increase, while Asia-Europe yields rose 17%. The squeeze comes despite what Mr Keyrouse described as a historically healthy period for air cargo supply and demand. Demand growth had averaged approximately 9% over the past 36 months, against capacity growth of about 5%, he said, contrasting this with much of the period before 2020, when capacity expansion had outpaced demand. But growth has become increasingly concentrated geographically and by commodity, creating additional challenges for carriers. China's share of global air cargo exports had increased from 27% to 34%, according to Mr Keyrouse, while ecommerce and AI-related cargo accounted for roughly two-thirds of demand growth over the past couple of years. He suggested the wider contribution of AI could be greater still, given the associated movements of machinery and power generation equipment. That concentration has helped deepen the imbalance between Asian exports and return flows, leaving airlines to manage the cost of weaker backhaul sectors alongside higher fuel bills. Rotate, nevertheless, expects global demand to continue expanding. Its forecast puts average year-on-year growth at 3.1% in the fourth quarter of 2026, followed by 5.1% in the first half of 2027. The company identified continued growth in Chinese ecommerce exports to the US, AI-related technology exports from Taiwan and South-east Asia to the US, and increasing intra-Asia trade as key drivers. Industry sentiment also remained relatively positive: 70% of respondents to Rotate's sentiment index expected this year's peak season to be at least as good as 2025's. Over the next 12 months, Mr Keyrouse said, Rotate expected demand growth of around 3.3%, broadly matching capacity expansion of approximately 3%. Freighter deliveries and conversions would drive much of the additional supply, with retirements also factored into its estimates. However, a balance between global supply and demand would not mean individual markets were equally well supplied. "Yes, next year there will be a global balance between supply and demand, but that is not at a tradelane level," he said. "You will see airlines and companies really fighting it out to find opportunities on those different tradelanes."

Cyclone Arnab brings more disruption along India's eastern coast

Vessel-handling services have been suspended or restricted across several major ports along India's east coast since Monday, due to Cyclone Arnab warnings. The severe storm made landfall on India's eastern coastline this morning, bringing huge swells and gale winds across the region, according to reports. One key gateway port that suspended all operations until further notice was Visakhapatnam, a critical feeder port for Maersk's coverage out of India's east coast, especially for cargo moving in and out of Kolkata. Kuehne+Nagel told customers: "Potentially impacted container ports include Visakhapatnam, Gangavaram, and Krishnapatnam, all of which have received cyclone or storm warnings as Arnab approaches India's east coast." Industry sources in India believe the port suspensions could inevitably cause congestion and delays to freight flow, but the scale will only be known when terminals fully reopen. "Visakhapatnam terminals are slowly getting back to business, in tandem with government guidelines and updates," one carrier official told The Loadstar. "The ports were told to keep operations suspended as part of contingency planning." According to the latest updates, the cyclonic storm claimed three lives in India's Andhra Pradesh State, in addition to causing extensive damage to residential properties and utility installations in the region. Several Indian ports had already been experiencing operational pressures due to widespread vessel bunching tied to delayed arrivals from Asian origin ports, and "the cyclone disruption is another blow to the supply chains", said a Visakhapatnam-based ship agent. Visakhapatnam handled 302,926 teu year-to-date through September, edging down from 308,861 teu year on year, according to data collected by The Loadstar. Meanwhile, the authorities in Bangladesh issued similar cautionary alerts for ports as the cyclone threatened gusty weather over the northern Bay of Bengal and adjoining coastal areas. "Cyclonic Storm Arnab has formed over the east-central and adjoining west-central Bay of Bengal and is forecast to intensify into a very severe cyclonic storm before making landfall along the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts on 28 October," London-based port agency service provider Inchcape Shipping Services told customers. Congestion and operational disruption issues are not limited to the Indian coast. K+N also reported an average vessel waiting time of two days across terminals in Sri Lanka's Colombo port, "due to ongoing transhipment congestion, missed feeder connections, vessel omissions and routing changes", the company said.