Genoa firm comes to the rescue of Carnival Splendor in California

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Category: Latest Article

Published on Wednesday, 26 January 2011 21:20

Written by Teijo Niemelä

Written by Angelo Scorza

The Carnival Splendor, towed to San Diego after catching fire on November 8th, 2010, is now heading to San Francisco for further repairs and to await its return to cruising, scheduled for February 20th. The Splendor is now operating under its own power again, after a fire in the engine room off the Mexican coast disabled the two-year-old ship. Genoa has become a key logistical platform during repairs at the shipyard in California. Specifically, the job of supplying spare parts manufactured in Italy to the American yard has been entrusted to Cruise & Marine Logistic Network (CMLN), with Genoa-based Priano Marchelli & C. Srl, a founding partner of CMLN, and Blue Water Shipping bearing responsibility for shipments from Italy and ensuring their delivery in California.

"The first 200 tons of air delivery was accomplished on December 5th, collecting from Fincantieri’s Frosinone-based supplier an order of switchboards needed for immediate delivery to the Carnival Splendor. The whole operation took 28 hours; through Priano Marchelli we arranged freight collection by truck and in cooperation with our BWS U.S. colleagues and Genoa airport staff, we chartered a Kalitta airline Boeing 747 which reached Genoa from Bahrain on December 7th, where palletized goods were boarded in record-breaking time," reported Andrea Giachero, President of CMLN, who also confirmed that a further 95 tons were shipped on December 15th (through a second Evergreen air charter from the Genoa airport) with two more scheduled for the end of December and mid-January 2011.

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In order to streamline operations, the General Manager of the Genoa airport, Paolo Sirigu, designated a team of specialists to provide top-level service at a very competitive price. Dedicated shipments were scheduled every week until mid-January, as the Carnival Splendor's repairs took longer than expected. Several other carriers and airports were vying for this lucrative contract, but it was CMLN that was entrusted with the work and is now actively committed to gathering orders from Carnival’s various suppliers around the world.

Last week, Priano Marchelli managed the air shipments of two Ansaldo generators (110 tons) and one Wartsila main engine (96 tons), which took off from the Venice airport on a chartered Antonov 124-100 flight. "To date we have handled over 600 tons via air cargo loaded on four Boeing 747s departed from Genoa, two Antonov 124s departed from Venice and a lot of parcel air shipments (over 200 tons). I'd like to emphasize the perfect work of our organization in the United States and specifically in Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, which oversaw the operations of about 700 tons on site by air, for which there have never been delayed deliveries," Giachero said.

"Especially, we are grateful for the work done by Fabio Marchese in Italy and Roy Applegate, Global Vice President Cruise & Marine for Blue Water Shipping and Logistics in the United States," continued Giachero, who emphasized that his company is ready to support any owner's requirements in dry-docking, refurbishing and newbuilding. "We have just finished the work for Oceania Marina, for which we had a dedicated team at Fincantieri; currently we are taking care of the last Seabourn building at the Mariotti shipyard in Monfalcone as well as of Carnival Magic, where our dedicated team on site takes care of the logistics for the newbuilding through the use of handheld terminals and through our sophisticated Warehouse Management System, which has complete traceability of each movement. We will soon put forward this system for ships in service, with significant benefits and results for the owner," the Priano Marchelli boss announced.

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