Tag: UPS

Senator McHugh bill would stop mail-order cigarettes at USPS

Posted by | Jul 11, 2007 | |

Rep. John McHugh has again introduced legislation that would outlaw the mailing of tobacco products through the US Postal Service.

If passed, the bill, H.R. 2932, would amend Title 39 of the United States Code, restricting the USPS from delivering certain tobacco products. The bill provides that cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own-tobacco are nonmailable matter, would not be carried or delivered by mail and would be disposed of as the Postal Service directs. It also imposes a penalty of USD 100,000 for each violation.

All three major shipping companies — DHL, FedEx and UPS — have stopped shipping cigarettes nationwide and, as a result, all Internet tobacco vendors are using the USPS to make their deliveries. In addition, in January 2006, Philip Morris USA reached an agreement with a coalition of 37 attorneys general aimed at combating the sale of the company’s cigarettes over the Internet and through the mail. And, in March 2005, the attorneys general also announced that the major credit card companies had all agreed to stop processing credit card payments for the Internet retailers.

Matt Lavoie, press secretary to McHugh, said that McHugh had planned to attach the bill to postal reform legislation that was passed last year during conference negotiations but was unable to because a conference never took place. As a result, the bill never passed.

Other senators have introduced similar bills over the years, but they also never passed.

The USPS has said it has continued to ship cigarettes because, under postal law, packages are sealed against inspection unless there is probable cause.

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Air Canada drops Shanghai service

Posted by | Jul 9, 2007 | |

China’s boomtown has turned sour for Air Canada Cargo. At the end of June, the airline returned a leased MD-11 freighter to World Airways and scrapped its all-cargo flights between Shanghai and Toronto.

Withdrawing the all-cargo service marks the culmination of Air Canada’s retrenchment on the Pacific. The airline launched Shanghai freighter service in spring 2005 with two leased MD-11s, operating five days a week between the Chinese city and Toronto. Last October, however, the disappointing peak season prompted management to return one MD-11 to World and scale back the other two to three flights a week.

This April brought another step back from Air Canada’s Asian ambitions when the carrier canceled an order for two 777 cargo aircraft. Scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2009, those planes were earmarked mostly for trans-Pacific operations.

A major reason has been the increase in freighter operations between Shanghai and North America. U.S. carriers Polar Air Cargo, UPS and FedEx have used new traffic rights this year to step up their Shanghai flights. Moreover, Chinese carriers are increasingly targeting the North American market.

Since last fall, Shanghai Airlines and Yangtze River Express commenced U.S. flights with 747 freighters, and Jade Air Cargo is poised to start a 747-400 freighter operation from Shenzhen through Shanghai to Vancouver and Houston this month.

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Deutsche Post reviving US air cargo ambition

Posted by | Jul 4, 2007 | |

Deutsche Post has quietly revived a plan to invest in the US air cargo industry which was dropped four years ago in the face of regulatory opposition.

The company last month acquired a 49 per cent stake in Miami-based Astar Air Cargo, which in turn launched an unsolicited bid for Ohio-based ABX Air. Both companies derive most of their business from long-term contracts with Deutsche Post subsidiary DHL.

The proposed deal follows years of wrangling over Deutsche Post’s role in the US air cargo business, which is subject to the same constraints over foreign ownership as passenger airlines.

DHL agreed to sell its 25 per cent stake in Astar – then known as DHL Airways – to a group of US investors in 2003 after rivals such as UPS and FedEx claimed it had broken the ownership laws.

DHL’s USD 1.05 billion purchase of Airborne Express was also subjected to similar scrutiny, and the air cargo company was spun off to shareholders and renamed ABX, while the German group kept the ground-based parcel business.

Astar, which is headed by former Northwest Airlines chief executive John Dasburg, also tried to acquire ABX in 2003, and the talks were revived last December before the Miami-based group last week made an unsolicited USD 7.75 a share proposal to acquire its rival, citing “unusual volume and pricing activity” in ABX stock.

ABX was asked to respond to a proposal which valued the company at USD 454 million. Its shares climbed 12 per cent in the wake of the announcement and were trading just above USD 8, fuelling speculation of a rival offer from management.

DHL said it expected no problems in securing regulatory backing for the two deals involving its suppliers.

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Market forces raise the bar for delivery

Posted by | Jul 1, 2007 | |

While retail web sites work to differentiate themselves from stores with web-only features, personalized services, detailed imaging and other tactics, there always will be one thing that separates sites from their braicks-and-mortar counterparts: a reliance on delivery services to fulfill online customers’ orders.

And as shoppers have become more accustomed to online retail, their expectations of timely and reliable delivery services—across a variety of delivery options—have only increased. A comprehensive shipping policy has become a crucial part of e-retailing, experts say.

“A critical component of the online checkout process is the determination and selection of a shipping option,” says Rob Garf, vice president of retail strategies at research and advisory firm AMR Research Inc. “Retailers must offer multiple delivery methods, including overnight, ship-to-store and split shipments, and be crystal clear regarding cost and timeframe.”

For Internet retailing, the average postal rate increase comes to about 6 pct, says David Marinkovich, senior vice president of sales and marketing at DHL Global Mail. “The cost of fuel is having a big effect on retail shippers, but the Postal Service rate change that went into effect May 14 is the most dramatic postal rate change ever,” he says. “Some retail organizations that sell products like CDs, video games, books and apparel are looking at rate increases of about 54 pct.”

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