The freighters are stowed in front of the USA. The problem is the empty containers that cannot be stacked. Work is now going on around the clock in the ports.
the essentials in brief
- Freighters accumulate in front of the ports in California.
- The problem is the empty containers that have to be stored on the trucks.
- In order to save the Christmas business, people can now work 24 hours a day.
Around 100 freighters, each with 24,000 containers, are anchored in front of the ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles. They are waiting to unload their goods, which are mainly produced in Asia. On average, they have to be patient for around a week, as the “Welt” reports. And this leads to goods bottlenecks and higher freight prices.
Christmas will be in less than two months – the most profitable time for many companies. But because of the container jam, there is a risk of a bad Christmas quarter. That is why the head of a logistics start-up called for several measures – some with success.
93 out of 100 cranes are idle
“The circulatory system of our global economy has collapsed,” writes Ryan Petersen on Twitter. The negative feedback loops are making things worse every day. On a harbor tour in Long Beach, he saw 100 cranes, but only about seven unloaded containers, he reports.
The problem is that while as many goods as possible are being produced again in Asia, the USA is not. This leads to many empty containers that are on trucks but are not allowed to be unloaded. This should only happen in certain places, explains Petersen. And because stacking is prohibited, there is not enough space.
The result: “The trucks store empty containers and cannot pick up any full ones at the port.” At the port, on the other hand, there is no place to unload containers from the ships. However, the ships cannot pick up any empty ones and take them away.
Long Beach has now responded to the problem and one of Petersen’s demands: up to six empty containers can be stacked, which creates space at the port, in warehouses and on trucks. In addition, work can now be carried out around the clock at the large ports on the US west coast.
How do you buy the Christmas gifts for your loved ones?
It remains to be seen whether this will save the Christmas business. Many companies have already taken their own measures. Amazon, for example, asks its customers to order the gifts four weeks earlier than usual.
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