Air France-KLM pursuing Alitalia deal

While Italy is suffering a political crisis, Air France-KLM and Alitalia announced they are still working on their merging project. Since mid-January, both airlines started exclusive talks to elaborate their industrial program, following Romano Prodi’s government agreement at the end of 2007. The project and a final proposal would be finalized in two months maximum, [...]

Share on Facebook

2007: good year for Norbert Dentressangle

Norbert Dentressangle (ND), French road carrier and logistics company announced yesterday (January 30, 2008) a turnover up 12.2% to €1.8 billion. The road transport activity accounted for €1.12 billion (+12%) and logistics for €675 million (+12.6%) of the turnover. ND expects its EBITDA to be up 4.3% from 2006. Christian Salvesen part of Norbert Dentressangle: [...]

Share on Facebook

Taxis, strike time in Paris

Yesterday (Wednesday January 30, 2008), some 2,500 to 3,000 (police says 700 to 1,000…) taxi drivers were protesting against a decision to liberalize the market. This decision would be a consequence of the proposals contained in the report from the Commission, lead by Jacques Attali, that was in charge of proposing solutions to “unleash French [...]

Share on Facebook

Translohr: from Clermont Ferrand to Honolulu?

Honolulu has a “High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project” and the City & County of Honolulu sent a Request for Information (RFI). Twelve submittals were received from suppliers of fixed guideway transit system vehicles and include all four technology options for evaluation: “steel wheel on steel rail”, “rubber tire on concrete”, “monorail”, and “magnetic levitation”. Among these [...]

Share on Facebook

How do you (other countries) deal with freight rail?

SNCF Fret loses money, though less and less… A brief note to address an important issue in France: freight rail. SNCF, the French national railway operator, announced that 2007 would end on a €241 million loss and expects to lose €213 million in 2008. Even though losing money with its freight activities, the financial situation [...]

Share on Facebook

These roads that we could sell…

Three letters, three times the same letter, the letter P; “PPP”, it stands for Public-Private Partnerships. We already discussed PPPs from a French point of view in the article “Less cheese, more PPPs – Fed up with cheese, Beaujolais and accordions? France can show you its modern face as well… through public private partnerships” from [...]

Share on Facebook

In brief: Is FedEx going to "eat" DHL?

I read in the article referenced below from Les Echos, that Deutsche Post, DHL mother’s company, could sell DHL’s US activities. FedEx, ranked number 2 in the United States for packages shipping, with 29% market share, should be interested according to the Financial Times Deutschland. Deutsche Post apparently filed a €600 million assets depreciation for [...]

Share on Facebook

In brief: Paris have a dream… car-sharing

Mayor Delanoë has a dream, that one day, Paris will have its own “Zip Cars“, more commonly known as car-sharing system.Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë wants to set up a car sharing system in Paris. He expects the city to provide 2,000 cars when operation starts in 2009, and wants the vehicle to be… electric-powered! The [...]

Share on Facebook

Toward the (US-airlines)-Open Skies

Starting April 1, 2008, the EU-US Open Skies agreement will allow any European or US airline to fly any route between any United States and European cities. The Open Skies agreement was negotiated between the United States and the European Union, and finally signed in Washington, DC on April 30, 2007. It will remove current [...]

Share on Facebook

A freight train between Beijing and Hamburg

15 days trip, faster than a ship… A Deutsche Bahn AG freight train left Beijing on January 9, 2008; it crossed Mongolia, Russia, Bielorussia, and Poland, and arrived fifteen days later, on January 24, 2008 in Hamburg port in Germany. A 10,000-kilometer (6,215-mile) test trip for the Transport & Logistics subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG, [...]

Share on Facebook

keep looking »