Liner shipping service reliability across the three core East-West trades hit a five-month peak in March with an aggregate on-time performance of 64 percent, according to Carrier Performance Insight, the online schedule reliability tool provided by Drewry Supply Chain Advisors.

Today's supply chains form the arteries and veins that keep global trade alive, connecting a largely borderless, always-on world economy. New innovations offer disruptive possibilities for the future of global trade. It's easy to hypothesize that Star Trek-style teleportation, drones, 3-D printing, and space logistics, will change trading. But the biggest shift to the supply chain will see it digitally connected and becoming part of the Internet of Things.

Despite positive growth momentum, the container shipping industry continues to suffer new, big ship deliveries with no let-up to the ordering frenzy according to the Container Forecaster, published by Drewry Maritime Research. Drewry forecasts another year of excess growth in relation to demand in 2015. This will make it harder for carriers to repeat the estimated 92 percent load factors across the main headhaul East-West trade lanes achieved in 2014.

Global online sales increased 20 percent last year, and the United States took the international lead over China.

In early March, a loaded 747-400 freighter, operated by Atlas Air on behalf of forwarding firm Panalpina, pushed back from the gate in Huntsville, Alabama, and took off at sunset, full of machine parts from the American Midwest. It was the inaugural flight of Panalpina's twice-weekly "Brazil Wings" main-deck service from Huntsville to São Paulo, Brazil. On its return journey to Huntsville from Viracopos International Airport, the freighter flew on to Hong Kong International, with a load of perishable goods from Brazil and other South American markets. The total transit time for the new VCP-HSV-HKA route was less than 40 hours – pretty impressive for a journey of more than 11,300 nautical miles.