TransOcean Shipping - Vienna, Austria

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Interview with

Mr. Peter Czajkowski
CEO

First of all Peter, tell us about your background in shipping and logistics?

I started my career as part of the operations staff at CGM Agency in Vienna in 1991 at the age of 19. In 1994, I started to focus on sales. When CGM closed their services to the US and the Far East, causing the Austrian office to close, the management decided to take over the CGM Agency business and started a neutral liner agency‚ Dolphin Shipping in Austria.

So, for many years, we were agents for several liners like CGM, KLINE, Contship, Polish Ocean Lines, CSAV, Norasia, Hanjin, Hoegh Autoliners, and some smaller lines. In 1999, I was promoted to Managing Director.

As a neutral liner agency, we started in 2002 to work on project shipments in and out of Austria, a small market compared to our neighbouring country, Germany.

In 2004, the company was sold, and at the beginning of 2005, I left the company after 15 years.

On July 1st, 2005, TransOcean Shipping opened with just two employees and continued to grow to today’s size.

Where do you have offices located nowadays?

We have our headquarters in Vienna, with branch offices (full subsidiaries) in Hamburg, Prague, Koper, Budapest, and Belgrade.

Wien is an inland point although serviced by the river Danube. When you move project cargoes in and out of Austria, what are the main entry and exit seaports used?

It all depends on the weight and dimensions of the cargo. The trucking option to Hamburg, Bremerhaven or Bremen can accommodate up to roughly 100 metric tons and 4 meters width and height. Although we have been informed that the German authorities will make changes to the transport permits starting in March, 2020, we are waiting for more details.

All other cargo is shipped by barge to Antwerp or Rotterdam (as barges to German ports are too expensive) or Constanta with our inhouse barge specialists.

Could you provide us with a couple of examples of project cargoes that you have handled?

In 2019, we handled various projects. One of the larger ones was the transport of a hydropower plant from various locations (i.e., China, India, Italy, and Austria) to Malawi where we had to build a bypass for the big pieces. Another quite large project cargo was a complete industrial oven delivery in the US with approximately 20.000 CBM of cargo.

Would you characterise your company as a logistics provider, freight forwarder, shipping agent or all of the above?

We have always been active as a logistics provider as far as project cargo is concerned. For containerized cargo, we still have a big number of freight forwarders booking with our NVOCC Services.

Austria is famous for skiing, Mozart, and plenty of beautiful tourist spots. As a local, please tell our readers about a few spots to visit that perhaps are not overrun or so well-known in our country?

Unfortunately, there are not many places left which are not visited by the huge number of tourists coming to Austria.

Besides the tourist magnets like Vienna (which is, in my opinion, a must for all tourists) and Salzburg, here are some more highlights.

For history lovers: