• Boeing and Alaska Airlines announced an order for five additional Next-Generation 737-900ERs. The order is valued at US$481 million (355 million euros). Meanwhile, Boeing and Delta Air Lines celebrated the delivery of the carrier’s first 737-900ER (pictured above). The delivery is part of Delta’s 100-airplane order placed in 2011 to renew its fleet with more fuel-efficient airplanes.
• Lufthansa Cargo will add Lima, Peru, to its network Oct. 27. Its new service will be flown twice a week with MD-11 freighters. On Mondays and Fridays, the outbound flight will be via Dakar, Senegal, and Manaus, Brazil, to Peru. The return journey to Frankfurt will include stops in Quito, as well as in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
• Dutch air cargo trucking company Interport BV is setting up consolidation services from Switzerland to Spain and Portugal. With this new service, Interport BV will offer services for importing and exporting cargo out of Switzerland to the Iberian Peninsula.
• CEVA Logistics and TOWER Cold Chain Solutions launched the KryoTrans KTM (KryoTrans Modular) modular pallet shipper, a new service for shipping temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products in a secure environment at a consistent temperature.
• Kuehne + Nagel Singapore recently received ISO13485:2003 certification for its medical devices hub located at the Airport Logistics Park of Singapore. The certification is an international standard that confirms Kuehne + Nagel’s competence in handling medical devices and related services.                                         
• Globe Air Cargo welcomed the launch of All Nippon Airways’ second daily flight from Chicago, stating it will provide an important boost in cargo capacity for freight forwarders wanting to access the airline’s network of passenger and freighter services throughout Asia. Globe Air Cargo, part of ECS Group, is ANA’s cargo general sales agent in Chicago and New York.
• CargoSphere, a cloud-based global rate management service for the air transportation and logistics industries, announced that NNR Global Logistics USA Inc. has taken freight rate management and networking in-house with the full implementation of the CargoSphere service.
• Australian businesses that paid more than AUD$20,000 for airfreight between 2000 and 2007 must register by Nov. 15 to participate in any settlement of what is shaping up to be Australia’s largest cartel class action. Federal Court orders made on Sept. 27 oblige Maurice Blackburn, a law firm that is acting for cartel victims, to notify eligible Australian businesses of their legal rights in the lead up to mediation on Nov. 25-26. If settlement does not take place at or after the mediation, the 12 international airlines at the center of allegations will stand trial in the Federal Court in October 2014. The major international airlines in the case – including Qantas, Lufthansa Cargo, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Air New Zealand and British Airways – face allegations of cartel conduct infringing on the Trade Practices Act. The cartel is alleged to have caused the prices of international airfreight services to be higher than they would otherwise have been.
• L-3 Security & Detection Systems (SDS), a provider of security screening services, announced that its services for people, packages and cargo are now available through GSA Advantage. GSA Advantage is a government purchasing website run by the U.S. General Services Administration.      
• VTG Aktiengesellschaft, a European wagon hire and rail logistics company, and Kuehne + Nagel signed an agreement in Hamburg to merge certain rail logistics operations. The new company, which will operate under the name VTG Rail Logistics, will begin operations Jan. 1, 2014.
• C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. bolstered its anti-cargo theft strategy by joining CargoNet to provide customers with an approach to strengthening security around sensitive and high-value freight. CargoNet is centered on a national database and information-sharing system managed by crime analysts and subject matter experts. By providing coordinated incident communications, recovery support and deterrence measures, CargoNet helps its members prevent cargo theft and improve chances of recovery.
• UPS announced new service levels for managing temperature-sensitive health care products as part of its UPS Temperature True portfolio. With tremendous global growth in the transportation of cold chain products, health care companies can now choose from tiered service levels based on the degree of control needed, leveraging both the speed of air and the economies of oceanfreight while ensuring protection in the supply chain.                                  
• One of Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ Antonov AN-124-100 freighters delivered more than 90 tonnes of oilfield equipment from Calgary, Canada to Surgut, Russia.
The cargo of Calfrac Well Services Ltd consisted of two pumps used to perform hydraulic fracturing on trailers, a truck-mounted blender and auxiliary equipment for oil and gas well stimulation at fields in Western Siberia. Volga-Dnepr also completed a series of flights delivering space equipment for Astrium GmbH, a German division of Europe’s largest aerospace company. Three Swarm satellites were carried onboard three Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ IL-76TD-90VD freighter flights at Plesetsk Cosmodrome from Munich.
• Mentfield Logistics, an international logistics company, opened its new offices in Vietnam. In recent years, Vietnam has started to become an attractive competitor to China as a center for the production and shipping of products and goods across the globe.