Service Update – All Modes

Air Cargo

Air Canada announced a resumption of passenger and cargo flights to many destinations effective September 1. There are now direct wide-body flights to 31 destinations worldwide. More information on the schedule updates can be found at https://www.aircanada.com/cargo/en/news-updates/commercial/20200901.html

Ocean Shipping

The Loadstar of September 2nd reports on container line October plans for blanked sailings. TheLoadstar article can be found at

Rail

CN

FMA and other members of the Coalition of Rail Shippers (CRS) continue to hear wide-spread reports of service delays on CN, primarily related to bulk commodity carload traffic. Communication with the government continues.

CP

  • FMA and other members of the CRS are not hearing similar complaints on CP service.
  • CP expects operating conditions to remain seasonal for intermodal traffic.
  • CP Container Asset forecast this week
  • We are tight for 53’ reefer capacity at Lachine and Vaughan, and also tight for dry capacity at Vaughan and Vancouver
  • 40’ reefers are available at Vaughan this week for destination Calgary

Trucking

No issues on trucking service have been reported at this time.

Supply Chain Commentaries

AAR Canadian Rail Traffic Data – Week 35

North American rail volume for the first 35 weeks of 2020 was 22,111,806 carloads and intermodal units, down 11.0% compared with 2019.

Canadian railways reported 72,859 carloads for the week, down 15.3%, and 73,551 intermodal units, down 0.8% compared with the same week in 2019.

For the first 35 weeks of 2020, Canadian railroads reported cumulative rail traffic volume of 4,859,595 carloads, containers and trailers, down 8.6%. The detailed statistics for week 35 can be found at the first red bar below

Intermodal traffic is beginning to recover. As noted above, Canadian intermodal units in week 35 were down 0.8% compared to the same week last year. The AAR reports that U.S. intermodal for week 35 was 3.4% higher than the same week in 2019.

The graph at the second red bar below shows the trend of 2020 Canadian rail traffic in comparison to 2018 and 2019 volumes and the graph showing the Canadian intermodal trends can be found at the third red bar.

FMA Government Relations

FMA has continuing communications with Transport Canada Surface Policy and Marine Policy officials and with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) on Supply Chain recovery efforts.

Information and questions from members are encouraged and will be useful in our continuing outreach to FMA members and in our communications with the government. All individual company information will be kept confidential.

FMA Office Operations

FMA staff are primarily working from home. If you need to talk with us, please call me at 613-294-4569.

Updates are on the FMA Website

The FMA COVID-19 updates continue to be uploaded to the website and there is a link to them on the home page at www.fma-agf.ca .

The FMA updates focus only on the impacts of COVID-19 on supply chains.