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For almost six months, Canada’s West Coast ports have experienced heavy congestion, resulting from bad weather, U.S. freight diverted to Canada (to avoid labour problems) and equipment failures. But the impact on our freight clients has been minimized by five key steps:
- Allowing clients to adjust schedules by giving them advance notice (via Email Alerts!) of port conditions – just one example of the Market Intelligence offered exclusively to clients of Universal Logistics
- Ensuring vessel availability by pre-booking space
- Diverting shipments when that was a viable alternative for the client; some West Coast shipments were sent to U.S. & Canadian East Coast ports, and some U.S. freight was diverted to Canadian West Coast ports
- Employing airfreight for urgent shipments
- Using the Expedited Rail Service (ERS) system available in Vancouver terminals Deltaport and Vanterm to speed up the transfer of containers to railcars
This month there have been two positive developments:
- the labour problems at U.S. West Coast ports have been resolved with the signing of a new five-year contract
- containers are beginning to move normally through Canadian West Coast ports
Looking ahead, more congestion at Canada’s West Coast ports is possible for four reasons:
- Volumes are expected to increase as the Canadian economy heats up
- The annual “Peak Season Surcharge” scheduled for July 2015 underscores vessel capacity is tightening
- The major ocean freight carriers have no plans to allocate more vessels to Canada
- Many carriers are planning to purchase the largest vessels available (18,000 TEU), a vessel size that would overwhelm our West Coast ports
More Market Intelligence on Canada’s West Coast ports is available on request. Just call (905) 882-4880, ext. 308 and ask to speak with Debbie McGuire, Manager – Freight Solutions.
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