Chemical shipping faces another tough year, but prospects are improving thanks to the strength of the product tanker market which is attracting a growing number of swing ships out of chemicals into products, according to the latest edition of the Chemical Forecaster, published by global shipping consultancy Drewry.

The CMA CGM Group has launched the Wazzan Service, linking Morocco with Northwest Africa and boosting its intra-Africa coverage.

Challenge: Even though growth was on the fast track for one of the largest domestic foodservice providers, they were still hampered by supply chain visibility and accuracy challenges. Without visibility, they had no way of knowing how truckload orders were impacting their entire supply chain, leading to increased costs. The company was also facing substantial increases in commodity prices, fuel and the minimum wage - critical elements in the food and restaurant industries. Complicating those challenges were ongoing limited-time promotions, which require immediate responses to spikes in demand.

More and faster connections, more capacity, flexibility and time saving: these are the benefits available to European customers of Lufthansa Cargo and ANA Cargo as of Aug. 3. Both airlines are expanding their joint venture for freight consignments to routes from Europe to Japan.

A group of very important guests were transported on flight QR 8197 from Amsterdam-Schiphol to Las Vegas via Qatar Airways this past April. A 777-200 freighter was reserved for just 40 well-pampered passengers from 17 different countries, who flew "first class," so to speak, on the 11-hour, 20-minute flight. The combined net worth of these clients was about $160m. As rich as they were, they did little more on the flight than eat and sleep, with an inflight dining menu of 120 pre-packed haynets, water, oat bran for mash, mixed feed, apples and carrots.