COVID-19 impact on Ports

It’s no news the impact COVID-19 has had on everyone and all kinds of businesses throughout the world, but the COVID-19 impact on Ports has recently been of reason for concerns.

PORT CONGESTION

The ports in the United States are all suffering from a massive congestion of containers/vessels because the pandemic brought the perfect domino effect:

• A change in the buying patterns in the United States which resulted in an increase of vessels directed to the United States
• COVID outbreaks among port employees has left the ports with shortage in manpower resulting in a shortage in container equipment
• Vessels all over the coasts of the USA are anchored at the shores waiting to be let in
• And with ports being overstocked with containers, the container yards are overflowing and cannot allow additional containers to be dropped
• Resulting in loading delays for businesses that have no where to drop and store their containers waiting to get on a vessel
• Since many vessels are stuck in the coasts of the United States, Asia is seeing a decline in their vessel/container availability

COVID-19 IMPACT ON PORTS

According to different sources, it will be a couple quarters before we can start seeing a relieve in the bottleneck situation of containers throughout the US and Asia. Although we thought 2020 and its pandemic was behind us; we know that the culprit of this perfect storm, is the COVID-19 pandemic.

HOW DOES THIS IMPACT GARSON & SHAW?

At Garson & Shaw, we work diligently to load and ship our customers’ loads as soon as possible, with as little as possible hiccups along the way, as well as little as possible fees and surcharges. However, with shortage of containers, vessels, and availability at container yards; we are having to delay loading dates, as well as negotiating surcharges for storage. We certainly hope we can soon put COVID-19 pandemic behind us and all of its aftermaths.

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