Maersk Line will start imposing a $10 fee for “no-shows” on every container that shippers book for export on one of its trans-Pacific services that does not show up at the ports of Los Angeles and Oakland as of May 1.
Under the pilot scheme, Maersk Line will also pay shippers a compensation fee of $10 for every container that they have booked for export that gets “rolled” or bumped off an outbound ship at those ports as of May 1.
The pilot scheme is limited to cargo booked for export on Maersk Line’s TP-8 trans-Pacific service at the two ports.
“It’s a very small micro-pilot,” said Mary Ann Kotlarich, a spokeswoman for Maersk Line in the United States.
“It’s supposed to be a give and take,” she said. The fee would be imposed on containers “if they fail to arrive for loading for any kind of North American cargo that’s going to Asian ports. If we roll, we want to do something on that as well.”
The pilot scheme is limited to exempt commodities, such as waste paper and scrap metal.
“We are looking to see if we can start changing that customer behavior,” she said. About 25 percent of the cargo booked for export on Maersk Line fails to show up.
She said the carrier has been notifying its customers of the pilot scheme in the last two weeks.