AerOceaNetwork member Express Air Freight works overtime to get a Boeing 727 charter to Haiti

Atlanta, Georgia, based AerOceaNetwork member Express Air Freight Unlimited Inc. (EAF) worked overtime to get a Boeing 727 charter to Haiti recently.

“Nearly this whole (past) weekend Kim Duke and her office at EAF in Atlanta worked on putting together an aircraft charter which consisted of assembling various equipment from the Southeast area of the USA destined to the devastated capital city of Port au Prince in Haiti,” said David Marx, Managing Director of Express Air Freight Unlimited Inc.

AerOceaNetwork member Express Air Freight Unlimited Inc. (EAF) worked overtime to get a Boeing 727 charter to Port au Prince, Haiti

“Our first charter departed this morning from Miami to Port au Prince,” added David Marx, “A few other charters are planned in the next week that will consist of port a potties as well as tents.”

David Marx had only good messages for his team, which he relayed to his Atlanta based EAF Regional Manager, Mrs. Kim Duke:

“Once again – well done on making this happen Kim!!! Kudos to you and your EAF ATL team!! Thank you!!!”

We at AerOceaNetwork echo the same sentiments!

AerOceaNetwork (AON)

AerOceaNetwork is a non-exclusive network for professional logistics companies and international freight forwarders. We focus on our members having more time and opportunities to develop business with each other, cutting out the red tape that normally comes with freight networks.

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Skyline Express Announces New Security Manager

Joachim Weber with Hermann

In 2009 two thousand years will have past since the Battle of Varus ended in a devastating defeat of the Roman army in the remote region Germania, according to Roman authors. The exact date is not known. However, the Battle of Varus in 9 AD was a turning point in European history. Due to the course of events and its historical background, its research and multifaceted ramifications, it is even today – and especially after 2000 years – an event which enables people to comprehend the past and thus the present.

On May15th the festivities around the anniversary of the battle of Arminus against the Roman Empire were officially
opened by our chanchelor, Mrs. Angela Merkel.
Arminius, son of Cheruscan nobleman Segimer, was conceived to be pro-Roman: The young Germanic warrior, educated in Rome, was a cavalry officer and Roman citizen.

Hermann standing guard at Skyline Express!

All overseas visitors to Skyline Express know Arminius better as “Hermann the German” and surely have had the delightfull tour to the statue of Arminius, just 10 minutes away from our office.

With the all the celebrations and activities in this area, 50 Hermanns have been sold to local companies in order to have them individually
decorated as art to show the pride of the region in conjunction with the company activities. Hence, Skyline Express` “Hermann” shows the all continents of the world with our red goose crossing.

We also have established our “Hermann” as our new “Security Manager”.

Why Should My Company Join AerOceaNetwork?

I am contacted all of the time by freight forwarders who are curious about joining AerOceaNetwork but they are mainly hunting for information.  This is mainly because they are new to the international networking field or they do not fully understand how groups like AerOceaNetwork operate.

I am always happy to help them with this question!  I usually explain the many benefits of our group (and there are many) but at the same time three stand out:

1) Aeroceanetwork helps you grow your global agency network as we will have members around the world in areas that you might not have had business before.  Whether the business is from you or from the other side it is always good to have a company who is tested and known to you.  It will also create customers for you in your home market that you never had before, some of whom you might not have had a chance to win over.  This is because many of your partner agents would be working with these companies’ suppliers and customers.;

2) Aeroceanetwork helps you to create greater efficiencies in your agency relations because you are able to meet all of your agents in one place at least once per year.  These meetings are very important because you are able to meet good, targeted agents face-to-face in compact one-on-one meetings.  These prove to be very effective in getting your name out there and in finding out about the opportunities that exist with the other agents.  You get a good idea of who you are dealing with.  It is an extremely effective way to grow your agency business.  Virtually everyone comes home with business in hand and great leads for their pipeline; and

3) Aeroceanetwork not only helps you to increase your global agency coverage, but we also have a financial protection plan that protects you when dealing with other agents in our group.  This removes a lot of the risks associated with international credit.

Because Aeroceanetwork is a non-exclusive network for professional logistics companies and international freight forwarders, we focus on our members having more time and opportunities to develop business with each other, cutting out the red tape that normally comes with freight networks.  I think that this could be quite good for your business development and I think you might agree if you think it through.  I am attaching the details on how to go about joining.  This includes the member dues and the fees for the financial protection.

So if you are interesting in the above benefits, what do you think about giving membership in AerOceaNetwork a try for a year?

New AerOceaNetwork Member: Links Cargo Agencies Pvt Ltd

AerOceaNetwork is happy to announce:

Links Cargo Agencies Pvt Ltd

Union Co-Operative Insurance Building, 2nd Floor
23 Sir P.M. Road
Mumbai  Maharashtra  400 001
India
Tel.: +91 (22) 4036 1818
Fax: +91 (22) 2283 1032

Contact:

Mr. Shashi R Tanna, Managing Director

Links Cargo Agencies was set up in 1984 and have since carved out a reputation as highly reliable forwarders in the Indian market. Their company’s services include ocean and air freight forwarding, shipping, road and rail transportation, Sea / Air combined service, and multimodal transport and scores of other services which makes life easier and a lot more profitable their clients.

I look forward to seeing Shashi at our upcoming meeting in Kuala Lumpur!

Celtic Forwarding Ltd is embracing paper-free trade to reduce costs and increase competitiveness

Celtic Forwarding is embracing paper-free trade

Having recently participated in a successful 18-month EU pilot project on paper-free trade, Celtic Forwarding Ltd is now fully committed to going paper-free by working with TradeFacilitate, a secure online paper-free system for importers and exporters, as a means to reducing costs and increasing competitiveness in the international trading supply chain.

The EU pilot project, which was led by TradeFacilitate, demonstrated that we were able to move wine/alcohol from exporters within the EU and the New World to their importers in Ireland totally paper-free, delivering significant savings for everyone involved.  Describing the project as exemplary, the EU has now validated the TradeFacilitate system as an ideal low cost paper-free solution for SMEs upwards.

Trading goods internationally involves lots of people processing lots of paperwork:

• From Importer to Exporter to Broker to Transporter, etc.

• From Order to Invoice to Shipping to Customs, etc.

Paper drives costs up in terms of additional staff time to manage paper, additional phone/fax/courier expenses to move paper, and additional time delays from having the wrong paper.  Celtic will help traders to use the paper-free system to cut their costs, as well as passing on the savings we achieve ourselves to our clients.

The time to act is now.  New EU Customs rules in support of paper-free trade will require advance electronic notification of exports out of Ireland from 1^st July 2009, and for imports into Ireland from 1^st January 2010 (and earlier, based on the first port of landing in the EU, e.g. Rotterdam goes live from 1^st July 2009).

The new eCustoms rules are known as:

• ECS (Export Control System) for Pre-Departure Notifications

• ICS (Import Control System) for Pre-Arrival Notifications

The rules shift responsibility for the safety and security of internationally traded goods onto the traders themselves (importers and exporters).

If the trade data is not made available to the appropriate customs authority in a timely manner and in the correct format, then an instruction may be issued to the exporting party not to load the goods for shipment.

The EU is driving this change not just to improve transparency in the cross-border movement of goods, but also as a major opportunity to cut unnecessary costs out of the supply chain and to increase the competitiveness of SMEs that are the backbone of the EU economy.  By introducing advance electronic notification, the EU wants to encourage the move to paper-free trade which can deliver savings of up to 15% on the total cost of trading across the supply chain, based on calculations on the cost of documentation in international trade by the United Nations, Microsoft and other respected authorities.

Full information on the implementation of the new rules in Ireland is available from the Revenue Commissioners website at: http://www.revenue.ie/en/customs/ecustoms/index.html and the official EU website at:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/1821&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en.

AerOceaNetwork in BusinessWeek!

Karen Klein, BusinessWeek Columnist

I was recently interviewed by BusinessWeek reporter Karen Klein for the Smart Answers, a regular column in the magazine. BusinessWeek is the largest business oriented magazine in the United States

I, along with Damon Schechter, CEO of Shipwire and author of Delivering the Goods, were asked our advice on how an entrepreneur might go about opening their own logistics company. The article can be found onBusinessWeek’s website or on AON’s own website.

I have known about Damon Schechter for several years and was in contact with him many years ago when I was an owner of a freight forwarding company in Vietnam, so it is indeed a small world that this reporter chose us both for this short interview! Anyway, it is very good for AerOceaNetwork’s stature to be mentioned in such well known commercial publications as BusinessWeek.

Even though this is meant for entrepreneurial people who wish to open their own international logistics firm, I hope you all give the article a quick read!

AerOceaNetwork Manila Meeting a Huge Success

AerOceaNetwork Members are Happy about the Meeting!

I just wanted to give you a short bit of background on the meeting as it went…

This meeting was out largest ever so far. We had more than twice the amount of participants over our last joint meeting with WLN (before the merger). And at least half of the people in this group were from companies that had never been to any AON or WLN meeting so this was a very big bonus for the participants. We also had good representation by the news media, being covered by three newspapers, one shipping magazine and the online edition of a Philippine television station. So far I have seen the below reports:

Shippers, freight forwarders engage in ‘speed dating’ to boost trade
GMA News TV
(Gary Dale Cearley and Josephine Cruz are quoted in this report)

And then…

Logistics firms press policy changes amid difficulties
BusinessWorld Newspaper
(Guilbert Purcia, Joachim Weber and Tony Bucci are quoted in this report)

Some AON Members Conducting their One-on-One Meetings

I am still receiving pictures from AerOceaNetwork participants who may have shot these over the past week. If you know of any photos out there that haven’t been sent on for me let me know.

But the best thing I believe that came out of this meeting was that virtually everyone who I spoke with came away with business in the pipeline. And that is what we meet for!

The Big Merge: How it has been…

Gary Dale Cearley, Executive Director of AerOceaNetwork

It has been a few months since AerOceaNetwork absorbed the now defunct Worldwide Logistics Network (WLN) and many positive things have happended since. First of all there the new AON has leap frogged several other networks in size which has attracted many new, highly qualified members. Anyone who has been paying attention to our recent rapid growth can see that the new members who are joining our group are highly professional forwarding operations; the kinds of companies that overseas agents want to work with. Of course, we don’t want to be the size of the mega network, World Cargo Alliance (WCA). We are a non-exclusive group, but at the same time we want to keep the numbers so that make a bit more sense to our clients.

Secondly, we have chosen Manila as the date for our international conference. There has been a very positive response to a meeting in this site and the time seems to work for most of our members. Manila will be a huge success and is already looking to be the biggest meeting that we will have had.

But this isn’t all.

Currently we are working on putting in one of the industry’s most innovative financial protection programs. It is not a “one size fits all” program but rather one that will allow members to tailor the program to their needs. Keep your eye out because there will be more on this in the future.

I want to end this entry with stating that as this is our first blog posting I really look forward to what both members and non-members will have to say in the future. It is our intention that this blog be another outlet for news about AerOceaNetwork, but also a pulse on the international logistics industry in general, as it affects independently owned commercial freight forwarders. So please let me know what you think! Also, if you have any ideas for what you might like to see a blog entry on, please contact me directly here.