Global logistics is far from recovering from the consequences of the new crown crisis. At the same time, it is also struggling with the impact of the war of aggression in Ukraine. Shipping companies in particular benefit from this.
China was and is one of the world's most important shipping logistics centers, and its zero tariff policy has brought major challenges in the past two years. Now, the pandemic has broken out again. With the gradual blockade of Shanghai, a port city, the problems that have long been considered to have been overcome are back. Gene seroka, executive director of the port of Los Angeles, said recently that they are paying very close attention to what is happening in China, and another wave of covid-19 has spread to several major cities and enterprises.. Los Angeles on the west coast of the United States and the adjacent Long Beach port are the bottlenecks of container ship transportation. During the peak period, there are more than 100 ships waiting for customs clearance there.
At the same time, the situation has eased, as seloka now reports in the activities of Hapag Lloyd, a German shipping company in Hamburg. The bottleneck problem on the west coast of the United States and China is considered to be the main reason why global liner companies have been unable to complete their tasks on schedule for some time, and the transportation capacity is tight. Container congestion in the port, customers often have to wait for weeks for their goods.
The unrest began with a coronavirus pandemic in China two years ago, when ports were closed. Containers are jammed in the dock and trucks can't transport them out of the port. As there are not enough exits on the wharf, the goods are in danger of deterioration. "At that time, two large ships were left at the anchorage to use their sockets for refrigerated containers," said Rainer horn, a spokesman for Maersk subsidiary Hamburg south The shipping company learned from their experience and quickly stopped the cargo after imposing sanctions on Russia.
Russia "no longer exists" for logistics companies
"Because of the sanctions, Russia has been erased from the map and almost no longer exists." Insiders of a large shipping company explained.
Horn reported that even confirmed shipping bookings were cancelled. The customer can designate a new and alternative destination for the goods free of charge. However, the ports in the North Sea are full because shipping companies have to temporarily store containers that are not allowed to be shipped to Russia. Container terminals profit from it. Hamburg Port and logistics group has been profitable for some time, because the ship delay caused by the epidemic means that containers stay in the port longer, and hhla charges demurrage for this.
At the same time, in Russian ports, tens of thousands of empty containers are idle. Otherwise, once the goods are unloaded, these containers will be taken away by ships on the return journey. These containers are urgently needed elsewhere due to bottlenecks. Danish shipping company Maersk alone has 50000. They are now trying to transport these iron boxes out of Russia by train. However, depending on the length, 80 to 100 containers can be placed on the train, while 10000 or more containers can be easily placed on the ship. At the same time, western countries lack Ukrainian truck drivers because they are participating in the war against Russia.
The shortage of transport space has pushed up freight prices
At the same time, large container shipping companies such as Mediterranean Shipping Company of Switzerland, Maersk Group of Denmark, Da Fei shipping company of France, COSCO of China and Herbert company headquartered in Hamburg are beating drums and gongs. Because of the lack of transportation space, freight rates have soared. Shipping groups are using this financial power to suck business away from freight forwarders. The insider said: "Freight Forwarders make a living by buying a large amount of cargo capacity on some routes and then selling it to their customers on a small scale at a higher price. A representative of a liner company described the business. We don't need them at present because the demand is too high. The so-called arbitrage business is like death. We do it ourselves because there is an attached margin. We deliver it to the door."
Shipping companies are investing in Airlines, container terminals and truck fleets to provide customers with everything from a single source. Transport from the factory gate to the buyer's warehouse or the customer's home. For example, MSC, the world market leader, and Lufthansa are eyeing ITA, the Italian state-owned airline, and hope to establish air cargo and passenger transport business. Maersk and CMA have ordered cargo aircraft. Danes have taken a place in the air cargo business through Maersk air cargo. Now, the Copenhagen based group wants to take over the logistics company Senator international, a large air freight forwarding company from Hamburg with about 2000 employees around the world.
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, also wants to get involved in the freight business and steal the freight forwarding business. Media recently reported that meituan hopes to book the capacity of container ships and cargo planes. The logistics group Kuehne und Nagel has provided all types of air and sea to land transportation. The Swiss transport company believes that the impact of the crisis on the logistics chain is not as significant as other companies. "In air transport, due to the closure of Russian airspace to Western Airlines, there has been a lot of restructuring in the past few weeks. These aircraft now take longer to travel to and from Asia," said spokesman Dominic nadelhoff. Overall, the industry is ensuring that goods arrive at their destination.
