Ocean Freight Performance in February 2021
February 2021 - Transportation Market Report
Ocean freight continued to experience significant delays in February with over 20 vessels at anchor outside of LA and Long beach. To put it in perspective, Eugene Seroka, Executive Director of the Port of LA, said if they did nothing else but worked on the ships at anchor, they would still be working them in another month.
The back-up at the ports is related to our buying patterns as the pandemic has led consumers to purchase goods instead of services. The inventory levels are retailers are hitting record lows, even with e-commerce. Retailers are trying to pull in as much as humanly possible right now even though they are aware of the significant delays. People are trying to pull in goods earlier than they would typically do. So that is why you are seeing those elevated volumes continuing here in early 2021.
In terms of vessel delays, we were only seeing one to two days. But once the freight got into the terminals, we saw delays as well. Productivity was way down in February because of limited staffing and how many workers can be in a particular amount of square feet. The typical throughput of a terminal took a beating in the month.
The light at the end of the tunnel for ocean freight is the COVID-19 vaccines. The state of California has moved the terminal operators and longshoreman up in the vaccine priority list. More vaccinations mean they will be able to ease some of the restrictions and get productivity back to where it needs to be. However, it will still take some time to get through the backlog of freight that needs to be handled and processed. Hopefully, as more consumers are vaccinated, the buying pattern will shift from goods to services and the volumes may relieve some.
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