Unifeeder's increased congestion caused by the pre-Chinese New Year
Caused by the pre-Chinese New Year Rush in Asia, Unifeeder has over the past weeks seen a general increase in the import volume into Northern Europe and Unifeeder expects this to continue until the middle of March, the company said in its press release.
To cater for the increase, Unifeeder have taken in additional tonnage, thus boosting the capacity within its network across the Baltic Sea and Scandinavian ports.
Meanwhile, due to the increased volumes and the fact that many ocean vessels arrive out of schedule in the hub ports, Unifeeder are facing an increasing congestion in the hubs. This causes idle time in the ports and consequently delays in the entire network as well as capacity bottlenecks for single departures due to the irregularity of the ocean vessels.
In combination with continuous delays in the Kiel Canal, this means that the extra tonnage deployed to cater for the additional volumes is for now more used to cover delays than actually generating the extra capacity it was originally aimed for.
The situation in the hub ports is expected to last at least until the middle of March - and may at ECT in Rotterdam be even longer due to installation of new cranes at ECT Delta.