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HutchWatch: The $23bn port deal that nobody can close

Where we stand: CK Hutchison's mega-sale to BlackRock and MSC was supposed to settle the question of who controls the world's most strategic terminals. Eighteen months on, the answer is: it's complicated. When CK Hutchison announced plans in March 2025 to offload 43 ports across 23 countries to a consortium led by BlackRock and MSC's Terminal Investment Limited for $22.8bn, the deal was greeted with something close to relief. Washington saw the exit of a Hong Kong-linked operator from ...

US forwarders call for action after Monday's flight disruption

The US Airforwarders Association (AfA) has called for action after a communication failure resulted in the grounding of flights in the northeast of the country on Monday. The AfA said the outage resulted in the cancellation or delay of around 7,000 flights and disrupted cargo operations. This highlighted the need for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to implement Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations to strengthen aviation communications resilience. "The FAA has identified serious threats to critical aviation systems, but this report makes clear that it has not completed the basic risk assessments or built the monitoring needed to address them," said AfA executive director Brandon Fried. "That is not good enough when the threats facing aviation are becoming more sophisticated, and the consequences of failure can spread across airports, airlines, freight networks, and the wider economy." The AfA said the GAO report identified significant gaps in the protection of aviation communications systems, that the FAA had not completed risk and mitigation assessments for identified spectrum-related threats, including spoofing and jamming, and lacked a defined capability to continuously monitor and detect such threats. The report was published on the same day that the communications equipment failures caused widespread disruption across the US northeast that saw the FAA issue ground stops affecting major airports including Philadelphia International, Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy International, and LaGuardia. This happened as world leaders arrived in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, the AfA pointed out. The three major New York airports affected by the outage handled more than 2.2m tons of cargo last year. "While Monday's disruption was not reported as a cyberattack, it showed how quickly problems with critical communications infrastructure can cascade across the aviation system," said Fried. "We cannot afford to wait for a malicious actor to exploit a weakness before treating resilience as an urgent priority." The GAO issued nine recommendations covering risk management, threat monitoring, information sharing, authentication, and data protection, all of which the Department of Transportation has agreed with, the AfA said. "The FAA now has a clear set of recommendations and no reason to wait; it must now close these gaps before they are exploited and invest in our ageing infrastructure," said Fried.

IATA calls for stronger approach to dangerous goods across the supply chain

IATA has called for more to be done across the supply chain to tackle the risks from undeclared and misdeclared dangerous goods. The airline association today published a whitepaper in which it argued for a stronger and more collaborative multilayered approach to dangerous goods. The call comes amid discussions among regulators on the role of existing aviation security screening processes as a key line of defence. "IATA stresses that security screening is an important layer of protection, but not a primary solution," the association said. IATA global head of cargo Brendan Sullivan added: "Dangerous goods are transported safely by air every day. The risk comes when they enter the system undeclared or incorrectly declared. "Every part of the supply chain has a role to play in identifying and stopping such incidents as soon as possible. Security screening, which is primarily focused on terror threats, is one layer of protection against rogue shippers, but it is not a complete solution. "A comprehensive multi-layer approach beginning as far upstream the supply chain as possible is essential." IATA said that Dangerous Goods Regulations enable the safe passage or properly declared shipments. However, the issue often stems from hidden items. Figures from the airline association show that in the first half of 2025, some 80% of incidents reported to IATA that involved dangerous goods stemmed from undeclared or hidden dangerous goods. "Lithium batteries and other concealed hazardous commodities, such as undeclared e-Cigarettes and aerosols, were among the products most commonly identified," IATA said. IATA said that existing security controls, including cargo screening, may provide an additional opportunity to identify anomalies and intercept some unauthorised dangerous goods. However, screening should not be regarded as the sole or primary solution. Current cargo screening technologies, certification standards, algorithms and training programmes were primarily developed to detect weapons, explosives and other security threats. Therefore, in the white paper, IATA urged governments to strengthen oversight and enforcement of dangerous goods requirements; Manufacturers and online marketplaces to ensure dangerous goods are correctly identified; shippers, freight forwarders, and postal operators to strengthen training and acceptance controls and enhance the use of customer and shipment data; airlines and ground handlers to strengthen checks before cargo is loaded; and airports to improve coordination and information sharing across the cargo community.