Where I work relies on a shipping container of product to be delivered every few weeks. These deliveries are typically “just in time” restocking because we don’t have the warehouse space to keep months and months of inventory. Yesterday at work, I learned from my boss that we can’t schedule a container for delivery in the month of may at all.
We have one container that just got in the country, that would usually be delivered 1-2 weeks after it clears customs. And 2 more waiting for pickup in china to be put on a boat. We can’t get anyone to schedule delivery in may at all. We can’t get anyone to schedule a pick up of the other two containers.
And they won’t even talk about June.
It’s as if the shipping companies are shutting down may first, and won’t schedule after it. And they won’t tell us why.
Okay so my friend in logistics got back to me:
******** do you still work in logistics?
Just curious if you are seeing any weird activity in May/June, like no available int’l (freight) shipping being able to be scheduled at all and no reason being given?
Actually the problem might also be with domestic shipping as well
Hola hermano, I still work in logistics.
This has been the hardest but most profitable period of my logistics career
The ocean liners won’t give me bookings less than 4 weeks out
Airlines are booking me 3 to 5 days out
I used to get same day or 1 day delay bookings
Ocean bookings used to be a week out only
The logistics carriers didn’t keep building and improving
They’ve just tried to handle volumes with what they have and leave it to the goddamned boomers to build something and then let it run itself into the ground lol
lol
what do you mean by building? you mean like manufacturing capacity stateside or something?
Yeah
The harbors only have like 12 slots and they only have enough crew to unload around 2 vessels a day which is also bottle necked by lack of cranes
We need more harbors north and south of LA.
SF/Oakland is too small and restricted by bridges
LAX is over burdened by traffic Ocean traffic and land traffic
If you look at China they have a major harbor every 200 miles of coastline
And they’re still backed up too
oh damn
is the rona and the suez thing also coming home to roost, or is this just a decaying system on its own?
All of it together
But it’s definitely covid restrictions holding up port operations more than before
Suez was a hiccup that would have been more noticeable if we werent in such a backlog at the ports
So it was a big deal but No one noticed because the whole system is on fire haha
