Author: Archive

Maltapost workers return to sender

Posted by | Oct 14, 2007 | |

Job security is the name of the game for 120 of the 150 Maltapost employees who are entitled to take advantage of a scheme to return to the civil service.

The employees took the decision after Cabinet last month approved the transfer of 25 per cent of the government’s shares in Maltapost to Lombard Bank in a Lm1.2 million (€2.8 million) deal.

Lombard becomes the company’s majority shareholder with a 60 per cent stake, though the government has made it clear it intends to completely privatise Maltapost.

Maltapost employees who formed part of the Posts Department before 1995 have the right to return to the civil service under the terms of the 1996 agreement for public sector workers affected by privatisations. Maltapost has a total of 550 workers.

Union Haddiema Maghqudin president Gejtu Tanti is not surprised at the number of workers who decided to return to the public service.

Postal workers have passed through a turbulent period in the past 12 years – the postal department was turned into Posta Ltd in the mid 1990s before it was closed down and workers temporarily shifted to the Office of the Postmaster.

When Maltapost was born through partial privatisation, around 100 workers decided to return to State employment.

Mr Tanti said the company will now have to make a fresh call for applications, and he insisted that Maltapost was not overstaffed.

However, the UHM president believes Maltapost is now in good hands.

“With the constant improvements in IT, it’s an uphill struggle for all postal companies to do well, but I believe Maltapost will be stronger financially with a reputable bank like Lombard at the helm.”

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State reviews options to ease delays at Anchorage Airport

Posted by | Oct 14, 2007 | |

Traffic at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is steadily increasing, and airport planners believe that the growth could soon lead to take-off and landing delays, more circling for landing slots and longer taxi times on the ground.

By 2012, estimates show there will be a 60-minute wait for some aircraft accessing the airport during weekday afternoons, according to Anchorage airport development director Rich Wilson.

Those projections have led airport planners to consider options for infrastructure growth to head off the problem. Ideas include building a second north/south runway or altering existing runway patterns.

Wilson gave a presentation at the Anchorage Air Cargo Association’s monthly meeting on Sept. 25.

The cost of building the North South runway in 1979 was USD 32 million. Wilson didn’t give a cost to build an additional runway. Such work generally would run into the tens of millions of dollars.

Building a new north/south runway is one of several options airport planners are considering, Wilson said.

Other options included making adjustments to the existing east/west runways, as well as developing an airpark near one of the runways.

Some could argue that cargo carriers UPS and FedEx would be the biggest beneficiaries of spending millions of dollars to build a new runway.

FedEx and UPS together generate USD 15.4 million a year in landing fees.

FedEx is the second highest revenue generator at USD 9.2 million, behind Alaska Airlines passenger and cargo services, at USD10.5 million. China Air ranks third, making the airport USD6.9 million, while UPS ranks in the fourth position at USD 6.05 million.

FedEx, UPS and Northwest Cargo all value Anchorage International as their premier gateway hubs to Asia.

FedEx currently has 20 flights from Anchorage daily, according to McCluskey. UPS has more.

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Pencils up cost of absentee ballots

Posted by | Oct 14, 2007 | |

In particular, small green pencils inserted with every absentee ballot could add USD 900 to the total cost of mailings thanks to changes in United States Postal Service rates.

Ray Daiutolo Sr., spokesman for the United States Postal Service, said the change in cost is due to changes in the rate structure for all mailings separating most letters and packages into those that can be processed by machine and those requiring more manual handling.

The addition of the pencils, Daiutolo said, creates a thickness in each envelope making them difficult to process by machine and thus adding to the cost.

County Election Bureau executive director Elizabeth M. Dries said postal rates per envelope will rise from 61 cents to 97 cents because of the new postal regulations put into effect in May 2007.

Though her office has received application for only 867 absentee ballots so far, Dries said in 2004, a comparable election year, the number reached 2,500, and Datte estimated the number of absentees could be even higher this year.

Voters interested in receiving absentee ballots due to either disability or illness – making it difficult for them to reach the polls – and those who will be out of the county on Nov. 6 have until Oct. 30 to apply for absentee ballots.

They have until Nov. 2 to return completed ballots by mail or in person to the Schuylkill County Election Bureau.

Other counties will not likely incur the same cost as Schuylkill County this year despite the change in postal regulations.

Passarella said his county counts the average 3,000 to 4,000 absentee ballots they receive a year – as many as 14,000 in gubernatorial election years and 26,000 in presidential election years.

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UAE Express delivery firms to continue rapid growth

Posted by | Oct 13, 2007 | |

Express delivery and logistics companies in the Middle East would continue to enjoy a double-digit annual growth in their business in the coming few years as regional economies remain healthy, a senior industry official said.

“In the last five years the business has grown at a rate not seen in the past,” said Hamdi Osman, senior regional vice-president of express delivery firm FedEx.

He said among the key drivers of the business have been the re-export trade and sea-air cargo in the UAE.

“All of us are enjoying a double-digit growth,” Osman told Gulf News.

He said that an economic slowdown in the United States could have an impact on the industry’s pace of growth in the UAE.

FedEx’s express delivery business in the region grew by 20 per cent and air cargo soared by eight per cent last year, Osman said.

“The ground transport segment is the next frontier of growth,” he said.

Within the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bloc, movement of cargo has been slowed by a lack of effective customs coordination.

Osman said it is “not a perfect scenario” on the UAE-Saudi Arabia border.

The company has a fleet of 800 vehicles in the GCC, including about 100 in the UAE.

FedEx plans to set up a large facility in Dubai Logistics City (DLC), a key part of Dubai World Central project that will create the Middle East’s biggest logistics and transportation hub in Jebel Ali.

Osman said the company is waiting for more details of how the goods are going to be moved between the existing Dubai airport and the proposed Jebel Ali airport.

A 500,000 square foot site has been proposed for FedEx in the area.

DLC has attracted some of the industry’s biggest players, including express operator Aramex, forwarding and logistics firm Danzas, logistics service providers Kuehne+Nagel and Panalpina.

By 2008 the zone expects to lease more than six million square meters of land.

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UK Ministers hail post strike deal

Posted by | Oct 13, 2007 | |

The government has welcomed a deal which could lead to an end to strike action by postal workers.

The agreement between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers’ Union is still to be ratified and details have not yet been announced.

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform described the development as “significant progress”.

Royal Mail said unofficial strikes were continuing at about 10 delivery offices in London and 20 in Liverpool.

The deal was ratified by Royal Mail boss Adam Crozier, Communication Workers’ Union general secretary Billy Hayes and his deputy Dave Ward, and TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

If the terms reached after marathon talks at the TUC are supported by the union’s executive on Monday, the deal is likely to be put to the vote by the CWU’s 130,000 members.

It is hoped the resolution will bring to an end the long-running row over Royal Mail’s modernisation plans, which union officials had feared would see 40,000 jobs lost.

Royal Mail has been granted an injunction to stop CWU members at sorting centers and delivery offices striking next week.

But the injunction did not apply to all parts of the Royal Mail, and in the wake of Friday’s agreement it was not clear whether some groups, such as drivers, would take part in the walkouts.

Workers who had been staging unofficial strikes in east London and parts of Scotland have returned.

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Itella Information creates one international document scanning environment standardising on Kodak’s production scanners

Posted by | Oct 12, 2007 | |

Eastman Kodak Company today announced that Itella Information, the service bureau division of Itella Group, has harmonized its production scanner infrastructure selecting Kodak as its main partner. To support ongoing growth of the business and add future capacity for growth, four i1860 scanners, the fastest ever high volume systems from Kodak, have been purchased for use at its production centers in Finland and Sweden.

This is a significant deal as Itella Information’s extensive scanner fleet will be now be predominately Kodak based thereby simplifying hardware management, improving efficiency and flexibility in a hugely price sensitive and competitive business.

Formerly known as Finland Post Group, the company was renamed Itella Group in June 2007 and provides traditional consumer focused postal services in Finland under the Posti brand, along with services to businesses in Finland and eight other northern European countries as Itella (1). Operating in three business areas –Itella Logistics (freight services), Itella Mail Communication (letter and direct mail delivery) and Itella Information (outsourced document management services, invoicing and business communication), the Group employs over 24k staff with net sales in 2006 totaling EUR 1,550.6 million.

Itella Information provides a range of standardized and bespoke services for customers with particular focus on digitizing solutions which covers invoice processing and document process outsourcing. Itella manages the whole lifecycle of documents from initial scanning, workflow, document management, electronic archiving and subsequent access.

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Geodis opens a new groupage and express branch in Amiens

Posted by | Oct 12, 2007 | |

Geodis will open its new branch in Amiens on Friday 12 October 2007. This local transport facility will help local companies to grow by widening access to Geodis’s worldwide network.

On a 44,000m² site at the Espace Industriel Nord in Amiens (140km north of Paris), this site offers 85 loading dock doors, a 5300m² operating area and employs 140 people. All Geodis Calberson Picardie and France Express “groupage” and “express” deliveries and pick-ups for the Amiens sector will be handled here.

This new facility provides a direct link with Geodis’s national and international networks thus allowing the local firms to take advantage of the Group’s know-how.

Using its next-generation parcel management tool transmitting data in real-time via wifi, this facility will be able to process over 600,000 express or conventional groupage shipments a year as part of a quality, secure and reliable service.

The new site is part of Geodis’s strategy to regularly update its production equipment in a bid to constantly improve Total Customer Satisfaction (STC) against a backdrop of sustainable development. This investment and the drive of the regional team are also Geodis’s way of confirming its intention to become a key player in supporting companies in the Picardy region and their international aspirations.

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Belgian Post to merge parcel, express subsidiaries

Posted by | Oct 12, 2007 | |

Belgian Post announced yesterday it will merge its two subsidiaries Taxipost and Kilopost into a new merged division to be called “Parcels & Express” to cut costs and enhance its services. The future business will operate under the Taxipost brand.

The express unit Taxipost has succeeded in increasing volumes and revenues but has not achieved a financial breakeven in a tough competitive environment, the postal group said in a statement.

Belgian Post said it has therefore decided to merge Taxipost with the parcels unit Kilopost into a new merged division to be called “Parcels & Express” under the management of Eric Piers.

The Taxipost depots will be integrated into the Belgian Post mail division during the first half of 2008 and its contracts will be transferred to the parent group. The mail division will be responsible for handling and delivering all parcels. Belgian Post aims to complete the restructuring by mid-2008.

Belgian Post managing director Johnny Thijs said the restructuring was designed to enable the postal group to achieve its “major ambitions” in the parcels sector, to increase its market share and to reduce cost levels.

The two units had combined volumes of 25 million parcels in 2006. Taxipost increased its express volumes by 22 pct in the first half of 2007.

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