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'Opportunistic' Robinson - legal risk is no brake on M&A desire

The Dallas advisory verdict; pressure on contractual margins as spot rates remain elevated; depressed freight demand in a truckload market where growth is nowhere in sight; and more deal-making of a certain size - there was plenty on the CH Robinson (CHRW) menu during the call that followed the release of second-quarter (Q2 26) numbers after the US market close yesterday. Stock reaction: despite a 6% earnings-per-share beat in the second quarter, CHRW was little changed in after-hours trade. At $173.75, ...

EU levy on ecommerce imports reduces demand and freighter flights

The introduction of new fees on low-value ecommerce imports into the EU triggered a sharp contraction in Asia-Europe freighter capacity - though there is confidence the market will eventually rebalance. According to Aevean, APAC/MESA freighter capacity into Europe fell 14% in June, equivalent to around 18 fewer widebody freighter flights a day. Several major European cargo gateways recorded steep declines, with Liège down 16%, Milan Malpensa 24%, Schiphol 12% and Budapest 46%., The figures appear to support reports from airports that the EU charges have dampened demand for cross-border ecommerce shipments. Dario Nanna, commercial aviation manager at Milan Bergamo Airport, told The Loadstar: "We have experienced a 40% reduction in e-commerce cargo movements at our airport, reflecting the immediate impact of the increased costs on the market and the drop of the demand." While The Loadstar has reported accounts that suggest traffic has been diverted between European gateways, as customs regimes differ and Italy a main beneficiary, Mr Nanna said the country had not escaped the broader downturn. "Italy has been affected to the same extent as other European markets by the introduction of this fee. Fortunately, the Italian government decided to postpone the introduction of the additional €2 levy on each ecommerce item with a value below €150 until October. Had this measure been implemented as originally planned, it would have had a further negative impact on Italy's ecommerce traffic." Despite the immediate shock, Mr Nanna said he expected the market to adjust at some point. "In my view, these effects are likely to be temporary. I believe that, over the coming months, the market will gradually adapt to the new environment and establish a new equilibrium. Market participants will identify solutions to improve loads and restore cargo volumes to levels closer to those seen before the introduction of the additional fees," he explained. However, he warned that options for airports to mitigate the impact remained limited. "Unfortunately, there is very little airports can do directly. The underlying issue is the decline in demand caused by the higher cost of each ecommerce item. "Moreover, airports have a direct commercial relationship with the airline operators, rather than with the ecommerce platforms or shippers. As a result, any mitigation measures would primarily need to be developed in close cooperation with the airlines."

Carriers aim for schedule reliability on core trades at the expense of regional services

Global liner schedule reliability improved modestly during the second quarter, but is becoming increasingly fragmented as geopolitical tensions force carriers to prioritise core tradelanes at the expense of regional networks. Sea-Intelligence's latest Global Liner Performance analysis shows global schedule reliability reached 63.1% in Q2 26, up 2.2 percentage points from the previous quarter. However, performance remains "well below the 70%-80% reliability band that defined pre-pandemic Q2 normality from 2013 to 2020", it said. This highlighted what the analyst describes as a structural shift in liner network operations, rather than a return to normality. "It should be remembered that pre-pandemic, most alliances saw constant criticism for the performance levels at the time. Who knew we should get to a point, where we would begin to hope for those levels to re-emerge?" it said. According to the analyst, the second quarter demonstrated how carriers had adapted to prolonged geopolitical disruption rather than simply recovering from it. Following the initial shock of the escalating Middle East and Africa crisis in Q1, shipping lines have concentrated vessel deployment and schedule integrity on the world's busiest east-west corridors, accepting weaker performance across secondary regional trades. All six major trades outperformed the global average during the quarter, led by transatlantic eastbound (72.7%), Asia-North America West Coast (72.5%) and a sharply recovered transatlantic westbound service at 70.2%, a 21.3 percentage point improvement over Q1. Asia-North America East Coast, Asia-Mediterranean and Asia-North Europe were all above the industry average. However, maintaining schedule integrity on those routes came at an operational cost elsewhere. Average delays for late arrivals remained elevated, at 5.49 days, making Q2 the third-worst second quarter on record outside the pandemic. Although marginally better than Q1, delays were still significantly longer than the three-to-four-day averages that characterised the pre-pandemic period. Sea-Intelligence said this reflected "the compounding nature" of routing around conflict zones, explaining: "Once a vessel loses its berthing window or is forced into extended transit corridors around the Middle East, port congestion and lengthened recovery loops magnify the overall delay duration." The burden has fallen disproportionately on regional trades connected to the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian Subcontinent. Europe-Africa recorded the lowest schedule reliability globally, achieving just 30.2%, followed by Asia-Africa (34.3%), Asia-Indian Subcontinent (36.2%) and Indian Subcontinent-Asia (38.7%). Tradelanes serving the Middle East also languished, between 39% and 53%, underlining how rerouting, equipment dislocations, and sailing cancellations continue to affect regional networks. By contrast, routes largely insulated from Middle East disruption continued to perform strongly. Oceania-North America led the rankings, at 89.8%, followed by Europe-South America (89.6%), North America-Oceania (87.4%), and North America-South America (86.3%). Beyond headline reliability, Sea-Intelligence argues, shippers should increasingly focus on what it called "the reliability of reliability" - the consistency of schedule performance from month to month, rather than simply average on-time performance. "Stability is the name of the game for supply chain planning," said the analyst and argued that a tradelane consistently delivering 80% reliability provided greater value to supply chain planners than one oscillating between excellent and poor monthly performance. Its analysis of 34 deepsea trades showed the industry's most predictable services had changed markedly since before the pandemic. Of the ten most stable trades between 2018 and 2019, only Asia-South America and Oceania-Asia remained among today's top performers, while Asia-East Coast South America had emerged as the most volatile trade over the past two years. "For shippers looking to plan their supply chains, focusing on reliability alone is only part of the picture. They should also take a step further down into the data, and ponder the variability in order not to be surprised," Sea-Intelligence said. Maersk reclaimed the overall top position globally, with schedule reliability of 76.9%, followed by Hapag-Lloyd at 75.6% and MSC's 70.9%. Hapag-Lloyd and ONE were the only carriers to outperform their own historical Q2 averages, suggesting stronger network resilience despite the challenging operating environment. Most other carriers continued to operate below their historical benchmarks. Wan Hai recorded the weakest result, at 37.7%, more than 40 percentage points below its historical Q2 median, illustrating how regional network structures remain particularly vulnerable to disruption. At alliance level, the Gemini Cooperation of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd dominated every analysed east-west tradelane, recording reliability above 90% on four major routes and peaking at 97.5% on Asia-North America West Coast. MSC consistently ranked second, while the Ocean Alliance delivered mixed results and the Premier Alliance struggled, particularly on Asia-North Europe where its reliability fell to 34.7%. The Asia-Middle East trade was excluded because widespread sailing cancellations meant there were insufficient arrivals for representative analysis. The report also suggested the operational challenges were now extending beyond the largest global carriers. Historically, niche carriers have been the only operators capable of regularly achieving perfect monthly schedule reliability because of their smaller service portfolios. However, Sea-Intelligence found the proportion of niche carriers achieving above 90% reliability had declined noticeably since 2021. "The data shows this to be a fact, noted the analyst, but added that the data "did not tell us why". It suggested the trend was likely to reflect a combination of commercial decisions by operators and external constraints, such as persistent terminal congestion.