Gentlemen, there have been a number of issues relating to voyage numbers for CMR reporting. As a general standard, ANL has adopted the position that we will report voyage numbers in accordance with the vessel operator. This flows over to voyage numbers that will be reported in our advertised shipping schedules. Discussions were held with various consortium partners along these lines and general agreement was reached prior to CMR in most instances.
I am aware of a number of situations where there has been some over lap in reaching the standardised voyage numbering approach which has led to B/Ls being issued with Voyage numbers that are different to what principal agents will be reporting. Each of these instances seem to be unique and I would put them down simply to teething problems.
In all of this, because of the various teething problems, there will be an overlap between vessels where B/L's have been issued with voyage numbers that do not conform to those as used by the vessel operators but unfortunately, there is little that can be done for those vessels as it s not possible within our manifesting systems to cope with 2 different voyage numbers for any one given vessel voyage. Once any B/L has been issued to a shipper then we are confined to using that voyage number for all other B/L's on that vessel.
As most scheduling issues relating to voyage numbering were resolved prior to CMR, I would expect that this overlap of voyage numbers would only continue for a short interim period only.
In the interim, we can only recommend the position taken by Customs on this during all the briefings that during this transition period, the CMR web site be consulted to confirm the correct voyage number as set by the vessel operators impending arrival.
I hope this helps clarify the current position.
Regards,
Rod Pritchard
E-Commerce Manager
ANL Container Line
Melbourne, Australia
