The old year is long gone, our Chinese friends are celebrating the New Year of the dog and in the Southern hemisphere people are returning from their summer vacation. GAC celebrated their 50th anniversary with a splendid party and lightshow in the Dubai Hyatt in early January.


Time to look back at 2005 and now move on to 2006. 2005 was again a successful year for the EMO-TRANS group. We achieved our goals last year and we would like to thank our customers and network partners around the world. We will continue to invest in our company for further growth; from IT systems that continue to improve our customer service and operational procedures to more sales and new offices. As a member of CTPAT and TSA “known shipper” programs, a strong focus remains on security issues.
There will be a national operations meeting in Denver within the next few months.

We have increased our sales team in several locations and participated in the global sales meeting of our Indian friends, Uniworld-Logistics. India clearly is a strong emerging market and will be very much in focus for the group.

We have now opened our new office in Rochester NY, and moved into larger facilities in Houston and Los Angeles. The company is growing internationally as well.

We completed the purchase of shares from GEOTRANS in Peru which is now a partner of the EMO-TRANS Group. Daniel Almendrades has moved from Houston to Lima to help us develop this market. We also welcome Benjamin Granadino and his team to the EMO family.

EMO Chile is looking north with a presence in Iquique, an important transit point for Chilean, Bolivian and Peruvian cargo.

In April we will have our global meeting in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. In addition to our regular participants, we expect US customs officials to outline the goals of CTPAT and discuss general cargo security under the US regulations. Hope to see you there.

2006 will be a challenge as has every year before this and we are approaching it with confidence in our ability to succeed.

All the Best
Jo Frigger
Chairman & CEO

Importers of products transported on wooden pallets or in wooden crates are being reminded that Customs and Border Protection will begin tighter enforcement of phytosanitary regulations starting February 1. This means that non-compliant shipments face immediate re-exportation at the shipper's expense.

Under the rules, wood packaging materials "must be marked with the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) logo, the two-letter International Organization for Standardization (ISO) code for the country that treated the WPM, the treatment facility number assigned by the national plant protection organization, and either the abbreviation HT (heat treatment) or MB (methyl bromide)."

For more information on Customs' wood packaging rules, click here.
Additional information can be found on the following websites:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/content/2006/01/wpmsecphase.shtml
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppq/wpm/import.html

Globalization is having an anniversary. It was 50 years go that Malcolm McLean, an entrepreneur from North Carolina, loaded a ship with 58 35-ft containers and sailed from Newark, NJ to Houston. He wasn’t the only one to suggest that containers might make shipping more efficient. But he was the first to design a transportation system around the packaging of cargo in huge metal boxes that could be loaded and unloaded by cranes.

Container shipping eventually replaced the traditional “break-bulk” method of handling crates, barrels and bags, and stowing them loose in a ship’s hold, a system in use since the days of the Phoenicians. Replacing break-bulk with cargo containers dramatically reduced shipping costs, reinvigorating markets and fueling the world economy.

McLean, who died in 2001 at age 87, shares the credit with the Bay Area’s Matson Navigation Co., a longtime force in Pacific shipping. Two years after McLean loaded his ship, the Ideal-X, Matson’s Hawaiian Merchant inaugurated container shipping in the Pacific, carrying 20 24-foot long cargo holders from Alameda to Honolulu.

The world took note of McLean’s Sea-Land operation in the Atlantic and Matson in the Pacific, and containerization began to take hold.

In 1959, according to Matson research, the industry was loading and unloading 0.627 tons per man hour. By 1976, with container shipping well established, the figure was 4,234 tons per man hour. A ship’s time in port shrank from three weeks to 18 hours.

(excerpt from an article in the SF Chronicle by George Raine)

AA and UA Airlines are objecting to BAA’s handling of the ongoing fuel shortage situation at London Heathrow caused by the Buncefield oil depot fire in December.

This consists of the cancellation of a booking on one vessel and the re-booking of the same cargo on the next or subsequent vessel of the same shipping line. This may be initiated by either the shipper, freight forwarder or shipping line, each for a variety of reasons. Booking roll-overs are typically adverse to the non-initiating party, and, hence, generate controversy. Shipper/forwarder initiated roll-overs may lead to additional expense for the account of the cargo, consisting of demurrage or port storage, perhaps container detention, and/or additional terminal charges for re-handling cargo to the extent that the carrier, port or marine terminal operator provides for such charges under their respective FMC tariffs.

A change in the tax law has pushed UA to cut off flight privileges for workers laid off since Sep. 11, 2001. The government will view the privileges as income, resulting in taxes for the former workers and for the carrier. About 10,000 former workers will loose their privileges.

If you’re a railroad buff, a model train collector, or just somebody who wants to find out the latest train schedule, go to RailServe.com (http:///www.railserve.com). This is a must-visit site for anything to do with trains worldwide. There are links to railroad-themed computer games, antiques and collectibles, photographs, books, a worldwide freight railroad directory, industry organizations & government agencies, worldwide passenger rail & transit schedules, museums, news, tourist railroads and more.

Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the world’s busiest airport in terms of number of flights and passengers served, according to Federal Aviation Administration statistics. The airport had 980,197 flight operations in 2005. In past years, Chicago O’Hare International operated more flights.

One of the leading engineering and contracting companies in the field of industrial furnaces for the glass manufacturing industry entrusted our Chicago region with a large project. The business started in October 2005 and will be finished sometime this month.

19 x 40 ft flat-rack containers (out of gauge) from Argentina loaded with mechanical equipment and 107 x 20 ft. containers with refractory fire bricks from Europe have been moved. EMO Chicago, EMO Trans Germany (Solingen office) and our partners Gefco in Argentina handled this successful project together. The existing factory in the Portland, OR region is in the process of being rebuilt.

Florida West, Capital Cargo, Centurion Air Cargo and Kitty Hawk will see increased action in their all-cargo US-Mexico operations thanks to new exemptions made possible through amendments to the existing bilateral between the countries. The carriers were each seeking the designation that became available after Atlas Air gave up its US-Mexico authority. The formal signing of the amended bilateral earlier this week gave the US Dept. of Transportation more flexibility to award routes to all the carriers

SFO based Virgin America will be an efficient, low-cost airline despite spending $40 million on startup expenses, CEO Fred Reid said. He said technology will help the airline work efficiently with customers and behind the scenes. The airline last secured $177 million in funding for its launch.

While completing the fourth year of operation as a landmark achievement, Uniworld has handled over 15000 TEUS of sea freight and 8000 tons of air freight during the year 2005. The firm is working with high ambition, vigor and competency to scale new and challenging heights.

Uniworld India has invested heavily into IT to equip themselves to provide tailor-made solutions and online tracking and tracing to its customers.

EMO Trans USA sent a delegation of several people to participate in the meeting in India. Please entrust us with your shipments to and from India, this is a constantly growing market for the USA.

Click here to see a photo

Atlanta - Sheryl Holmes , Kathy Miller and Gabi Pfaff
Mobile - Rhonda Hofman
Hartford - Teresa Engel
Newark - Melanie Ryan
Miami - Florence Wang
Headquarters - Ellen Trione

Thank you to all our committed employees! We appreciate your hard work for all of these years.

The Gift Certificate for Barnes & Noble was won by Kelly Wilkerson. Congratulations!!!

Next month’s drawing features a gift certificate from Starbucks Coffee Company. Please let us handle many of your shipments. As always, each one will be entered into our monthly drawing.

• Courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying “I will try again tomorrow”

If you enjoy reading this newsletter and have a friend or a coworker who you believe might benefit from it, please forward it on. We encourage your ideas and suggestions. EMO Trans respects your privacy. We do not share your information with anybody and will only use this data to send you information via this newsletter. Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter.

Gisela M. Beckermann
Regional Manager
Northern California , Northern
Nevada and Pacific Northwest

Tel: (650) 697-0646
www.emotrans.com

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