Legal Definitions - interlining

Interlining refers to a common practice in the transportation industry where a shipping company, unable to deliver a package or cargo directly to its final destination, transfers it to a different transportation company to complete the journey. This ensures that the shipment reaches its intended recipient even if the initial carrier's network doesn't cover the entire route.

Here are some examples to illustrate interlining:

• Imagine a manufacturing company in Ohio ships a large order of machinery parts to a remote town in Montana. The initial trucking company, Midwest Haulers, only operates within the Midwest and major West Coast cities. To reach the final destination, Midwest Haulers transfers the shipment to a local Montana-based trucking company, Big Sky Logistics, at a distribution hub in Denver, Colorado. Big Sky Logistics then handles the final leg of the delivery to the remote town.

  This is an example of interlining because Midwest Haulers (the first carrier) transfers the machinery parts to Big Sky Logistics (the second carrier) because Midwest Haulers does not directly serve the remote Montana town.

• Consider a small business in New York sending a package via East Coast Express to a customer in a rural area of Alaska. East Coast Express has a robust network along the eastern seaboard and major US cities but does not have direct delivery routes to remote Alaskan villages. Upon reaching a major hub in Seattle, East Coast Express hands off the package to the United States Postal Service (USPS), which has a universal service obligation and can deliver to virtually any address in the US, including remote Alaskan locations.

  Here, East Coast Express (the first carrier) transfers the package to the USPS (the second carrier) because East Coast Express's network does not extend to the remote Alaskan village, demonstrating interlining.

• A company in Germany ships a container of goods to an inland city in Brazil. The German ocean freight carrier, North Sea Shipping, transports the container across the Atlantic to the port of Santos, Brazil. From Santos, North Sea Shipping does not have its own inland rail or truck network to reach the final city. Therefore, they arrange for a Brazilian logistics company, Amazon Logistics Solutions, to pick up the container at the port and transport it by rail and truck to the destination city.

  This scenario illustrates interlining because North Sea Shipping (the first carrier) transfers the container to Amazon Logistics Solutions (the second carrier) at the port, as North Sea Shipping's service ends at the port, and the Brazilian company completes the inland journey.