Mr. Peter Czajkowski
Managing Director
What year did you establish your company, Peter? Are you a shipping agent, freight forwarder or how would you entitle your company’s main line of business?
We started on the 01.07.2005 in Vienna. We are active in three main segments:
-Liner agency
-NVOCC (we have our own NVOCC, full US bonded)
-Breakbulk and project cargo
Our customer base is mainly freight forwarders, but we have some direct accounts that we have been handling for years already.
You are based in Vienna, which has a good location in the middle of Europe. Tell us how this is conducive to your business? Do you have offices elsewhere?
Yes, our headquarter is based in Vienna with branches in Germany (Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Munich), Czech Republic (Prague), Hungary (Budapest), Slovenia (Koper) and Serbia (Belgrade) . Vienna used to be the gateway to eastern Europe but due to political failings this position was weakened over the past years, but still, Austria is very active in the eastern European countries and a big investor there as well.
Vienna being an inland point and Austria having no seaport of its own how do you move cargo to/from ocean-going vessels? What mode of transport and which entry/exit ports are mainly used?
It all depends on the cargo. For containerized cargo, the main gateways are Koper, Triest, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp. For project cargo, you have various options depending on the size and weight. Generally, everything up to 100 tons and smaller than 3,8 m height and 4m in width can be trucked easily to north European ports. For bigger pieces we recommend barge transportation to Antwerp/Rotterdam, the only second option would be Hamburg due to price differences. Permissions for Italy are very difficult so we try to avoid that.
What is your opinion of the shipping lines and their service level in/out of Austria? Do you feel that there is a big difference in the level of service provided?
Definitely, it seems that container carriers don’t want to talk to customers anymore and prefer to receive bookings via electronic channels. This differs a lot from the shipping business that I learned when I started 26 years ago. We normally handle breakbulk bookings on container vessels with the port offices in Hamburg as these bookings are anyhow not done in Austria.
It is obvious that shipping in 5 years will be substantially different than the way we all have been doing business in the past as they carriers want to apply the model of DHL or an airline booking to the container business. This won’t work for breakbulk or project cargo due to the complexity of transport needs.
Austria is famous for a lot of things, music, mountains, skiing etc., but how about industry and export out of Austria – tell our readers more about what kind of products Austria exports and are well known for.
Austria is the home of some world’s leading machinery producers in their segments, consequently, that’s a big part of Austria’s overseas exports. Other mass export products are fibers, paper, timber, steel, chemical products and of course energy drinks.
Can you provide us with some examples of project cargoes and/or interesting shipments that you as Transocean have handled?
We have handled a lot of projects over the years, especially in the power plant industry and heavy machining industry. Our latest big move consisted of 3 sets of machinery for an airplane manufacturer with cases up to 19.5 x 3.5 x 3 m / 100 tons to the US. They were transported from Austria via Antwerp to the great lakes region in the US.
Additionally, we handled a transport of hydropower plant parts from India to Malawi via Mozambique with cases up to 5.5 meters in width. We were required to build bypasses on the way to the site due to the local African authorities’ width restrictions. Despite a 4 week delay due to bureaucratic problems, the cargo was safely delivered by a truck convoy to the site.
Finally, could you recommend to our readers a few places to visit in your country that are beautiful and worth visiting but not overrun by tourists?
This is a little difficult as Austria constantly has a growing number of tourists and every year we reach new record numbers of visitors.
What is really amazing in Austria is the nature and the landscape along with hundreds of lakes (see two examples below)
Austria’s nature is simply breathtaking and for people who like to hike Austria has countless offers.
A must for every tourist in Austria are the cities Vienna and Salzburg which both offer cultural and historic charm.
How to get in touch with you?
Transocean Shipping Transportagentur Ges.mbH
Altmannsdorfer Strasse 89/TOP 12
1120 Wien
Austria
Tel.: + 43 1 2350075 10
Fax: + 43 1 877 10 95
email: peter.czajkowski@tos-ship.com
