Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

La storica Tandem dell'Unione italiana ciechi e ipovedenti di Ascoli Piceno e Fermo si prepara a celebrare la sua ventinovesima edizione con importanti novità.L'appuntamento è fissato per domenica 14 giugno, quando una ventina di equipaggi composti da persone vedenti e non vedenti partiranno da Ascoli Piceno per raggiungere Grottammare, percorrendo circa 40 chilometri lungo la Salaria in una giornata dedicata allo sport, alla condivisione e all'inclusione.L'edizione 2026 si arricchisce di due nuove collaborazioni.La prima è quella con la Fiab, la Federazione italiana ambiente e bicicletta, che parteciperà all'iniziativa con propri operatori garantendo supporto alla pedalata in sicurezza.La seconda riguarda Decathlon San Benedetto del Tronto, che allestirà un punto di ristoro a Porto d'Ascoli e offrirà assistenza tecnica lungo il percorso. Entrambe le realtà prenderanno parte alla manifestazione pedalando insieme agli altri partecipanti.La partenza è prevista alle 9.30 dalla sede Uici di via Copernico ad Ascoli Piceno, mentre l'arrivo è atteso intorno alle 13 in Piazza Kursaal a Grottammare. Come da tradizione, è prevista una sosta a Colli del Tronto con un rinfresco organizzato dal Comune e dai volontari della Protezione civile."Pedalare in tandem significa fidarsi dell'altro, sfidare i propri limiti e vivere una giornata all'insegna dello sport e del divertimento", sottolinea la presidente territoriale Uici Gigliola Chiappini, ringraziando enti, amministrazioni e volontari che da quasi trent'anni sostengono l'evento. Riproduzione riservata © Copyright ANSA Da non perdere Condividi

With tentative hopes of a reopening of the Hormuz Strait dashed by the wave of air strikes Iran and the US traded last night, Gulf importers trying to get goods into their markets may have to turn to all-road routes and the TIR system, as Middle East landbridges struggle to keep up with demand. Mounting container congestion in the Saudi Red Sea gateways of Jeddah and King Abdullah (KAP) ports have left carriers unable to secure enough container haulage to fulfil shipments, with forwarders reporting huge delays in containers being gated out. “We have cargo routed into Jeddah and KAP for onwards delivery to the Gulf via merchant haulage, and are seeing timelines of between six to eight weeks to secure release, drivers, and delivery into the Gulf,” one forwarder toldThe Loadstar. He added that seasonal and administrative factors were increasing the pressure. “The routing into Gulf countries via the Red Sea has become extremely congested due to the influx of transit cargo, plus the seasonal peak into this region related to the Hajj festival. “It is not just the physical infrastructure that has become overwhelmed, but also the administrative services related to customs clearance and cargo release at the shipping lines and ports,” he explained. Gemini partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, which recently launched the Asia-Mediterranean AE19 service that includes a call at Jeddah (accessed via a southbound passage through the Suez Canal),announced at the beginning of Junethey had stopped accepting bookings to the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait via Jeddah and KAP, and would instead route those shipments through Khor Fakkan and Salalah. The Loadstarunderstands that MSC has also begun to route UAE-bound cargo through Khor Fakkan after it is transhipped over Colombo. “We have been suggesting to active clients for several weeks to avoid the Red Sea routing and switch across to the Arabian Sea services (Salalah, Khor Fakkan, Sharjah etc) due to the congestion in the Red Sea region, and this is being actively taken up,” the forwarder added. Source: The Loadstar Haulage sources in the region confirmed the capacity problems at Saudi’s Red Sea ports, but added that they were not just happening there. “Jeddah sea port is indeed running at full capacity, and some operators are experiencing delays on both entry and exit,” one said. “Alternative ports closer to the Gulf are indeed being considered, such as Khor Fakkan and Sharjah, but they also face the same capacity issues as Jeddah, including the ‘administrative congestion’ issues.” One silver lining, however, might be found in the all-road route from Turkey, which has reportedly seen a surge in traffic, most of which is running under the TIR (Transports Internationaux Routiers) system, which “enables goods to transit from a country of origin to a destination country in sealed load compartments, reducing the need for repeated customs inspections”, and is managed by the International Road Transport Union (IRU). “There is a significant increase in direct truck movements connecting Turkey to the Gulf via Syria and Jordan,” Rami Karout, the IRU’s senior manager for TIR & transit development toldThe Loadstar. “The market is witnessing significant movements in both directions, and the majority is operating under the United Nations TIR system, which streamlines customs procedures and delivers considerable cost and time savings for transport operators,” he added.

Geodis has drafted in long-serving executive Eric Gerbi to head its Global Freight Forwarding division, handing the role to a finance chief who spent more than a decade helping build the group’s contract logistics and supply chain operations. He replaces Henri Le Gouis,who is moving on, after just 20 months in the role. Mr Gerbi joins the Geodis executive board as EVP of global freight forwarding after serving as CFO of the division since 2024. Before that, he ran its supply chain optimisation business and, as deputy EVP, held responsibility for functions including IT, HR, customer solutions and key account management. The appointment sees Geodis turn to an internal candidate with deep experience across its logistics operations as freight forwarders navigate volatile ocean and air cargo markets, shifting tradelanes and continued pressure on margins. Mr Gerbi joined Geodis in 2011 after roles at Upply, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, and Saint-Gobain. Mr Le Gouis, according toLoadstar Premium, is returning to Ceva Logistics as SVP air & ocean.

US agriculture exporters are gearing up for another fight over Washington’s plans for penalties on Chinese-built ships, warning the measures could add as much as $900 per container to transport costs and wipe out export sales across a swathe of commodities. The Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC) sounded the alarm yesterday, after Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mark Kelly urged US trade representative Jamieson Greer to reinstate suspended port fees on Chinese-built and -operated vessels. Calling the proposal a “renewed federal government threat to US ag exports”, AgTC said the fees could prove existential for some sectors. “The proposed remedies threaten the very existence of large segments of US agriculture, by denying them the ability to continue to export,” said executive director Peter Friedmann. According to AgTC, fees of $1m-$1.5m per vessel call would ultimately be passed on to shippers, adding an estimated $600-$900 per container to freight costs. For exporters already battling razor-thin margins and fierce competition from Brazil, Canada, and Australia, that could be enough to price US products out of overseas markets, it added. AgTC estimates the additional costs would increase the delivered price of US soybeans to South-east Asia from $12 to $12.81 a bushel, corn from $8 to $8.81 a bushel, and timber exports to China from $500 to $575 per cu metre. In each case, the coalition argues, foreign buyers would simply switch suppliers. “Hogs in China could[n’t] give a damn if the soybeans come from the US or Brazil,” the coalition told the USTR. The latest warning follows a letter from Senators Warren and Kelly, demanding the Trump administration explain by 21 June whether it intends to restore the fees, which had been suspended until November during trade negotiations with China. The senators argue the measures are needed to counter China’s dominance of global shipbuilding and maritime logistics, claiming carriers had already begun shifting vessel orders away from Chinese yards before the suspension. But exporters see the proposal very differently. Beyond the fees themselves, AgTC warns that carriers would likely cut calls at smaller US ports and consolidate services at major gateways to reduce their exposure, making exports more expensive and less accessible for producers in agricultural regions. The coalition is also fiercely opposed to proposals requiring a growing share of US exports to move on domestically built and flag ged vessels. It argues there are no commercially viable ships available to meet the requirement, and says compliance would be “impossible” without massive government subsidies and years of American shipbuilding investment. The clash sets up a renewed battle between advocates of rebuilding US maritime capacity and exporters who fear they will be forced to foot the bill. “Nothing we produce in agriculture or forest products here in the US cannot also be sourced from a foreign country,” AgTC said. “If we cannot deliver to our overseas customers affordably and dependably, they will find alternative sources.”

The global freight forwarding market is still growing, but the industry’s easy gains appear to be over as slowing trade growth, geopolitical disruption, and persistent overcapacity squeeze margins. According to Transport Intelligence’s latestGlobal Freight Forwarding Market Size & Forecastreport, the market grew 4.4% in real terms in 2025, reaching €208.1bn ($240bn). However, growth is expected to slow sharply this year, the market forecast to expand by just 2.5%. Both air and sea forwarding are expected to see weaker growth. Air freight forwarding, which grew 4.1% in 2025, is forecast to increase just 2.5% this year, while sea freight forwarding growth is expected to slow from 4.6% to 2.6%. Source: Ti The slowdown comes amid a more challenging operating environment. Ti points to weaker trade growth, ongoing disruption in the Middle East, and structural overcapacity in ocean freight, all of which are making it harder for forwarders to translate volume growth into profits. That pressure appears to be spilling into relationships with shippers. At TIACA’s Air Cargo Forum in Warsaw last week, Mark Chadwick, president of the Global Shippers Association, toldThe Loadstarsome forwarders had sought substantial surcharge increases following recent market disruption, with requests varying wildly between providers. The association attempted to establish a common framework for surcharge support across its forwarding partners, but abandoned the exercise after receiving requests ranging from no increase at all to as much as 250% on the same tradelanes. “A couple were trying to make the year on a couple of months,” he said, adding that some members felt they were being “completely taken advantage of”. While Mr Chadwick acknowledged that disruption had created genuine cost pressures, he suggested some forwarders had been more aggressive than carriers in seeking additional compensation. He also noted that demand remained weak and capacity plentiful in several markets, limiting carriers’ ability to push through sustained rate increases. Indeed forwarders have toldThe Loadstartheir margins are severely under pressure. Yet despite slowing growth and the growing pressure on profitability, investors continue to see opportunity in logistics. According to the latestGlobal Logistics M&A Recap Report, from Ti and Logisyn Advisors, Europe accounted for 54.2% of all logistics acquisitions in May, with North America accounting for 25%. Last-mile operators were the most popular acquisition targets, followed by software providers. However, many of the most significant deals reflected a growing interest in specialist logistics capabilities, including customs brokerage, project logistics, and ecommerce fulfilment. Among these were fulfilmentcrowd’s acquisition of Dutch ecommerce specialist Fulfilment.nl; Ceva Logistics’ purchase of heavy-haul specialist Fagioli Group; and Redwood Logistics’ acquisition of customs broker EELCO. Mikael Olesen, MD of Logisyn Advisors, said customs expertise had become increasingly valuable as tariff changes and trade complexity reshaped supply chains. “Buyers are acquiring customs capability not just for revenue, but as a differentiator,” he said. Scale alone no longer appears to be enough for the forwarding market. The winners are increasingly likely to be those able to offer services customers cannot easily source elsewhere.

The EU’s planned introduction of a €3 fee for low-value ecommerce shipments from 1 July is expected to create fresh volatility in Asia-Europe air cargo markets. Forwarders are warning of a pre-deadline surge in volumes and uncertainty over how quickly demand will normalise afterwards. During a market update, Arno Hausch, head of air freight for German-speaking markets and the Nordics at Flexport, identified the measure as one of the importer’s key concerns, alongside Middle East capacity and jet fuel cost. According to Flexport, the impending change is already influencing shipping patterns as ecommerce companies attempt to move goods before the new fee takes effect. Mr Hauschnoted similarities with the market behaviour seen ahead of the US de minimis reform, which drove a temporary spike in demand and put pressure on available capacity. “We saw that when this was implemented into the US, and we saw here also a pre-rush, putting more pressure on capacity and increasing demand on the Asia into Europe lane,” he added. Flexport has outlined two potential scenarios for the market after 1 July. Under what Mr Hausch described as a “relief window”, the pre-deadline surge would subside and ecommerce volumes could fall by 15% to 20%, largely China-EU traffic. Combined with improving capacity from Middle East carriers, this would lead to softer spot rates through July and August before the traditional peak season. However, in a less favourable outcome, ecommerce operators rapidly adapt to the new customs requirements, allowing volumes to continue flowing. Any capacity released would then be absorbed by growing demand from AI and technology hardware shippers, while continued disruption in the Middle East would keep capacity constrained.Rates would remain elevated and could increase further into the fourth quarter. “Scenario A is more likely to happen than scenario B, but you have to be prepared for both,” he said. Meanwhile, the uncertainty extends beyond freight markets. During a panel discussion at TIACA’s recent Executive Summit in Warsaw, Craig Strickland, chief sales officer at BoxC, said implementation details were still being refined. “There’s still nuances that are still being worked on throughout the month of June in preparation for the 1 July date,” he said. Mr Strickland explained that software providers and customs stakeholders were continuing preparations, but also warned of operational challenges in the early stages. “Customs is aligned; they’re still working through the minutia on that, based on follow-up and conversation this month, and there will definitely be a lot of rocky bumps,” he said. Nevertheless, he expects cross-border ecommerce demand to remain resilient, despite the additional compliance requirements and costs. “I know for a fact that ecommerce will continue to occur,” Mr Strickland said.

Since May, travellers through Tokyo’s Haneda Airport may have seen a new type of worker on the ramp: Japan Airlines (JAL) is running a trial using humanoid robots to handle freight and luggage. The experiment, slated to run until 2028, is using robots produced in China to load and unload containers and move them on the ramp. According to JAL Ground Service, having robots perform physically demanding tasks reduces the burden on workers and “provides significant benefits to employees” – increasingly important, given Japan’s demographics, which are blamed for growing labour shortages that triggered an influx of foreign labour, which in turn has prompted growing pressure to put the brakes on immigration. At the same time, passenger volumes have kept rising after hitting a record 60m travellers passing through Haneda last year. The robots can operate continuously for up to three hours, and management is planning to deploy them pn other tasks, such as cleaning aircraft cabins, while key tasks, like safety management, will continue to be performed by humans. Humanoid robots are also in action at China Post’s Jinggao logistics site, at the Guangzhou postal centre, where they sort parcels. Equipped with fingertip sensors sensitive to 3 grams of pressure, they grip parcels from containers and place them onto sorting lines, reportedly handling 1,200 items an hour. The Jianggao facility can handle an average of 6.5m pieces of mail every day. Along similar lines, German tech firm Siemens recently partnered with UK-based AI/robotics company Humanoid for a ‘proof of concept’ project that saw a humanoid robot pick up totes from a storage stack, transport them to a conveyor, and place them at the designated pick-up point for human operators. The robot met target metrics that included throughput of 60 totes an hour, dealing with two different tote sizes, continuous autonomous task execution for more than 30 minutes, and uptime exceeding eight hours. According to new research by Interact Analysis, humanoid robotics hold great promise, with revenues possibly reaching $15bn by 2035. Its researchers described the field as “an emerging market with huge opportunities for growth”. They highlighted the flexibility humanoid robotics offer, as they can move through facilities, climb stairs, handle packages, and perform repetitive work without requiring major facility re-design. On the other hand, the report notes considerable hurdles that can slow widespread deployment: it points to high costs compared with traditional automation; battery life limitations; productivity concerns; safety requirements when operating near people; and integration with existing warehouse systems. While recent announcements indicate firms are looking at larger deployments, many projects have not moved beyond pilot phases, it adds, suggesting: “While the market will grow quickly, market penetration will be very low.” And Cody Upp, chief commercial officer of Vecna Robotics, is not expecting a victory parade of humanoid robots into warehouses. The dominant work in such facilities involves repeat processes at high volumes, whereas humanoids are more geared to bespoke processes, he pointed out. “Every warehouse is a cost centre. The goal is to try to remove cost from the warehouse without affecting efficiency, speed, and reliability,” Mr Upp added. While some basic humanoid robots with marginal capabilities may be available for as little as $10,000, more sophisticated models may cost as much as half a million dollars, he noted. And in light of the emphasis on cost savings, they are not viable for warehouse operations. “A warehouse worker in the US earns $20-$25 an hour, and the question is, how much he can produce in an hour? If a humanoid can beat the unit economics of human labour, that’s when we’ll see them in warehouses,” he said, adding that a significant portion of the volume in most warehouses is processed by 3PLS, which have very low margins. Some organisations will deploy humanoid robots despite the economics hurdles, but they will be less driven by economics than by a decision to embrace new technology, he suggested.

The key growth figures first. Look The Far East-Sub Saharan Africa container trade is clearly the most dynamic corridor covered by CTS currently, with last year’s box numbers up 26.5% on 2024 to hit 4.79m teu. (Click to expand the screen grabs below.) That growth has continued – in the first four months of this year, they are up 28.3% year-to-date to 1.74m teu. The star performer last year was of course the China-West Africa corridor, where a demand explosion happily coincided with a flood ...

The recovery of air cargo operations in the Gulf has been thrown into fresh uncertainty as the US and Iran exchanged a new wave of strikes this week, prompting another temporary closure of Kuwait airspace and fears of renewed disruption across the region. Kuwait briefly suspended air traffic last week after its airport was hit, but has now resumed normal flight operations, highlighting the continuing fragility of the operating environment for airlines and logistics providers. The latest escalation comes as carriers and freight operators had begun restoring services across the region, following a period of relative stability after a ceasefire was agreed in April. DHL said its regional air operations had recovered significantly in recent weeks, with transit times and service performance nearing pre-conflict levels. “Transit times, which had extended to five-to-seven days during the disruption, have largely returned to near pre-conflict levels of 24 to 48 hours. Service performance is now close to normal in many markets, with key hubs, including Bahrain, restored. “Of course, some constraints in airfreight remain, including limited capacity in certain countries, occasional schedule disruptions, and rising operational costs,” a spokesperson toldThe Loadstar. Contingency planning has been at the heart of DHL’s response to the crisis. During the height of the disruption, the company established backup hubs in Riyadh and Muscat to maintain connectivity across the region. In April, it launched a thrice-weekly 747 freighter service between Liège and Jeddah, dedicated to pharma and life science shipments, with onward distribution across the GCC by road. Following the reopening of regional airspace, the Gulf destination has since switched from Jeddah to Dubai World Central. Asked how dependent DHL was on the bellyhold capacity provided by European passenger airlines that have yet to fully return to the Gulf, the spokesperson said the company’s network was largely insulated from those constraints. “DHL’s regional network is built for resilience and relies primarily on its own dedicated freighter fleet, limiting dependence on belly cargo capacity from passenger airlines. While belly capacity provides a complementary buffer under normal conditions, it represents only a small share of total capacity.” Indeed, while Gulf carriers Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways have largely restored operations, many European and international airlines remain reluctant to return. British Airways has pushed back resumption of Dubai passenger services until 25 October, extending a suspension originally expected to end on 1 July. Under the revised schedule, flights to Dubai, Tel Aviv, Bahrain, and Amman will remain suspended, while frequencies to Doha and Riyadh are being reduced. The decision suggests that security concerns remain elevated despite the partial recovery in regional operations. Passenger demand has also yet to fully recover from the prolonged period of instability. On the cargo side, Lufthansa Cargo confirmed toThe Loadstarthat it had postponed Frankfurt-Tel Aviv freighter operations again, with no flights to Tel Aviv,freighter or passenger, until at least 15 June due to the security situation. Air France resumed passenger services to Riyadh last week, but a spokesperson confirmed that other destinations in the Gulf and wider Middle East remained suspended. Air France-KLM-Martinair Cargo continues to avoid Dubai on freighter services to and from Hong Kong. For the cargo sector, the latest flare-up serves as a reminder that, despite the impressive resilience shown by airlines and logistics operators in recent months, the region remains vulnerable to sudden operational shocks. Airspace closures have become shorter and less disruptive than during the initial weeks of the conflict, but the renewed exchange of hostilities between Washington and Tehran is unlikely to encourage European carriers to accelerate their return to the region. Instead, airlines appear content to wait for a new sustained period of stability before restoring networks that can be withdrawn at a moment’s notice by geopolitical events.

There is a certain kind of 8-K filing that reads like a corporate press release. Then there is the kind that reads like a deposition exhibit. Norfolk Southern’s filing on 1 June was the latter. John Orr, the railroad’s chief operating officer (COO), resigned for “good reason” effective 31 May, citing proposed changes that would result in a diminution of his duties and responsibilities. The SEC filing, drafted in the careful language of someone expecting litigation, documented a departure that was ...