On the first anniversary of the shipping industry's first guaranteed service for less-than-containerload cargo; the creators of OceanGuaranteed say their on-time performance is nearing 100 percent.
APL Logistics, part of the NOL Group, and Con-way Freight, a major trucking company, jointly operate the day-definite, Asia-to-U.S. service. Created to couple airfreight reliability with the lower cost of ocean transport, the service carries the industry's only money-back-guarantee for less-than-containerload cargo.
The two partners said that OceanGuaranteed's on-time score is 98.6 percent. "We won't stop until it is perfect," added APL Logistics President Brian Lutt. Cargo volume has increased five-fold in the first six months of 2007 thanks to the proven reliability of the service, the companies said.
With OceanGuaranteed, shippers can transport cargo from seven Asian ports to any destination in the U.S. Shipments cross the Pacific on ocean services operated by APL, the world's eighth-largest container steamship line. Once they're discharged at APL's Los Angeles marine terminal, containers are deconsolidated and cargo transported to final destination in one-to-four days by Con-way Freight's dedicated, time-definite U.S. delivery network.
"We didn't enter this market lightly," said Lutt. "OceanGuaranteed is run by two of the most reliable transportation service providers in the industry--companies that control their own transport and terminal assets. We knew we could achieve this type of result."
OceanGuaranteed debuted last year with three ports of origin--Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen in China. Customer demand prompted expansion in January to Yokohama, Japan; Busan, Korea; Kaoshiung, Taiwan; and Singapore.
The two companies are exploring opportunities for a U.S. East Coast import gateway by 2008.
http://www.apl.com