Haulage Issues, Lack of Containers, No Slots Left - International Shipping Problems within the UK
You are probably aware of the major issues that we are all experiencing with shipping consignments worldwide. We feel your pain. There are several reasons why the shipping world is currently in complete disarray within the UK.
Initially COVID caused a massive downturn in worldwide trade which meant that shipping lines reduced their capacity dramatically. Slowly over the last 15 months the shipping lines have been gradually returning their capacities to pre pandemic levels.
However, over the last few months demand has been far exceeding supply which has caused a massive increase in the open market rates and on some routes there have been increases approaching an eye watering 800% increase. As one of the largest members of the Movers Trading Club (MTC) John Mason International benefit from very advantageous rates and some stability. The downside is that the MTC only have a limited number of slots each week with each shipping line on each route. Once these limits are reached, the shipping lines can allow more accessibility BUT at this time they know they are able to make more money for different sorts of shipping products.
Just last week the BBC website reported about one company, who normally pays approximately USD2500.00 for a 40 ft container from China, but are now being charged in excess of USD16K! Therefore, the lines will not give our industry any additional slots on any vessels. In line with the MTC contract the lines are allowed to “tweak” their rates depending on fuel and currency rates (BAF & CAF). They are regularly trying to increase their charges by sometimes in excess of USD1K but fortunately, we have a strong MTC that is able to limit these rises.
There is also a problem with containers being out of position and empties have continued to piling up around the world and this is having a knock on effect with congestion at ports. This means that the shipping lines cannot put a container at the port whilst waiting for a vessel to arrive and to be loaded. In most cases, the ports are only allowing a maximum of 7 days for a container to be held at the port. This means that when we ask for a container to be booked for a particular date, if this doesn’t fall within the timeframe, it will be declined by the line. Sometimes, we may have a container booked for a particular date and a vessel may not be on time. Therefore, the shipping line will arbitrarily cancel the booked date because of the port time limit.
We are now seeing some lines suspending certain routes. Recently ONE line suspending all routes to Australia and NZ to try correct the imbalance of containers stuck out in these countries. We have now been advised by ONE line and Hapag that we cannot book anything for North America (USA & Canada) without between 45 days and 8 weeks’ notice. Some other lines will take short notice booking, but at a minimum are doubling their rates. Therefore, this is having a major effect on transit times both for sole use containers and groupage.
Another challenge is actually getting the shipping line to deliver the container to you on the appointed date and time. We understand that when Brexit was imminent, a very large amount of European drivers decided to leave the UK and go home. This has caused a large shortfall in HGV drivers. The knock-on effect is that haulage companies are able to “cherry pick” which trades they service. Sometimes the lines/JMI may get less than 48 hours’ notice that the container is not going to arrive. You may also have experienced containers initially being delayed enroute due to port congestion etc. The follow on from that is the container just does not arrive. The UK is one of the only places in Europe to live load at residences. It's becoming more and more apparent that haulage companies hate doing this and many excuses are currently being used by them to avoid doing this where possible. The shortage of haulage means haulage firms are able to dictate to the shipping lines and are able to pick and choose what work they do.
All the above situations are totally out of our hands and impacting the industry across the UK. Just recently we have had 2 containers cancelled on us, for loading at residences, at 24 hours’ notice. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it, no matter how much we aggressively protest. Shipping lines will not accept any consequential costs of their failure to deliver. If we push too hard, we will just find that the lines will ignore any invoices, refuse to pay and if we try to contra they will just hold all the other booked containers to ransom until they are paid in full. Not a nice situation but that is the way they work.