Suez Canal backlog pushes freight to air

Ongoing problems with ocean freight have been exacerbated by the weeklong Suez Canal blockage and freight forwarders have advised shippers to consider other transportation modes, and airfreight in particular. Georgia-based 3PL JAS Worldwide advised shippers to consider utilizing other shipping modes in a bulletin today. With airfreight rates still elevated, ocean freight offers more cost-friendly transportation, but port congestion challenges are expected to continue for months. “When facing time constraints, air freight may be a more viable option,” according to the bulletin. [caption id="attachment_94915" align="alignright" width="450"] Photo courtesy of Hong Kong International Airport.[/caption] China-Europe rail has also increased during the pandemic as capacity-stretched forwarders look for alternative modal solutions. However, even before the Suez Canal blockage, westbound rail services were nearly at full capacity. According to recent reports , New Silk Road trains remain mostly full and are unlikely to offer much additional capacity for forwarders looking to shift cargo away from ocean. Ocean freight rates from Asia to Europe have so far not been impacted by the Suez Canal blockage, according to the most recent update from Freightos. On the airfreight side, however, yields for airfreight shipments from Hong Kong to Western Europe increased by 9% for the week from March 22-28, from the prior week according to WorldACD’s latest market trend update, suggesting some cargo moving to air has already pushed rates higher. AIT Worldwide Logistics confirmed that some shipments have already moved to air, though which shipments depend on the cargo type, President and CEO Vaughn Moore told Air Cargo World in a recent interview. “There were products that were put in the air, but you’ve got to look at the balance of what happens,” Moore said. “If you’ve got a larger, heavier product that takes up a lot of space, much harder to move in the air than you do with a smaller product or something denser, even.” Some of those shipments are moving by air “to reach the shelf for the consumer or get into a distribution center, or even manufacturing that was needed,” he added. AIT expects the current ocean problems to be relieved late in the second or early in the third quarter, Moore said, and projects that the preference for air will continue until then.

Suez Canal backlog pushes freight to air

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