With everyone wanting to start the new year off on a good foot, port congestion on the west coast has been causing headaches for importers. The congestion at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach that started around the beginning of the holidays has only gotten worse with no clear end in sight. High volumes of containers were scheduled to arrive in advance of the 2019 Lunar New Year, and this along with concerns about new tariffs going into effect have caused a huge increase in volumes. The volume uptick has led to delays in the unloading of vessels as well as a shortage of trucking, drayage carriers, and chassis availability.
The executive director of Port of Long Beach, Mario Cordero, said “We’re seeing unprecedented levels of cargo.” Though the threat of increased tariffs was delayed until March, many goods were shipped early to try and beat the clock. With the holidays just getting over there was a shortage of workers at docks because many longshoremen go on vacation. This causes vessels to have to wait for labor to be allocated to them to be unloaded. With the increase in the amount of goods coming into the country the warehouses are reaching capacity resulting in containers and chassis remaining off the dock longer causing a ripple effect. Because warehouses are full, containers are taking longer to be unloaded and returned, which causes a lack of chassis at ports, which causes containers to stay at the ports longer causing congestion and with more and more goods coming in the ripple gets bigger and bigger.
Many are hoping that this ripple will soon be over, the Chinese New Year has come to an end and with this vessel activity looks set to shrink. According to Nerjus Poskus, vice president and global head of ocean freight of Flexport, the container lines had announced more than 40 blank sailings in the transpacific eastbound sector. Hopefully this will give the ports some much needed time to catch up, until then capacity will likely be tight.