From congestion to disruption to full-blown crisis, the logistics industry has been under such intense pressure it’s amazing we aren’t living under a rainstorm of diamonds! With reports coming in that we’re seeing days of 100 ships waiting in the San Pedro Bay, forwarders are desperate for options to expedite and recover the cargo. Technically, to illustrate the issue, for every truck available in Los Angeles, there are 16 containers waiting for transportation.
The ports, the government, forwarders, truckers, and everyone else involved in trying to solve the crisis have taken steps to try and mitigate the wait, including the City of Long Beach now deciding to send an emergency order to allow higher container stacks to move them off ships faster. While the Biden Administration has asked the ports to switch to a 24/7 schedule, working around the clock to catch up, the measures have yet to make a dent in the crisis. Despite best efforts, the backlog of ships leads to overcrowding in warehouses, bottlenecks in rail shipments, dwindling truck capacity, and a respective climb for air freight rates.
Diversion of cargo was a simple solution early on in the disruption, however, now isn’t the time to reinvent the logistics wheel. Los Angeles and Long Beach, NY and NJ, are the largest and busiest ports in the country because they were built specifically to handle more cargo than the smaller container ports on the east, west, and Gulf coast. They might be backlogged to staggering delays, but no other port can process anywhere near the cargo that LA/LB and NY/NJ can – imagining Norfolk or Houston trying to clear the same numbers would be an absolute calamity. These ports are busy because they can handle it, even when they can’t.
Coppersmith Global Logistics has almost eight decades of experience in logistics and we’re not afraid to say this is a unique situation even for us. Thankfully, this situation has reinforced the path to success we’ve paved. Spending years building a network of trusted industry panthers and developing connections we can lean on when times get troubled. If you want to see what solutions Coppersmith can create to help your logistics plan, reach out to your representative today!
