As the Middle East conflict enters its third week, significant impacts are being felt on global shipping and airfreight movements.
With some 400,000 teu’s (twenty foot equivalent units) currently stranded on vessels in the Middle East, those containers are basically out of operation and may have an effect on the availability of empty equipment in many countries. As all services are suspended to and from all Middle East ports at present, equipment shortages and sailing schedule changes may start to appear across Asia.
Significant Emergency Surcharges have been imposed by shipping lines with the view they will now offload/load cargo in safe ports in Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia and land-bridge all containers to/from their ultimate destinations in order to have their vessels again operating and not sitting at anchor away from the conflict area.
Many shipping lines and LCL cargo consolidators have already announced emergency fuel/war surcharges on many trade routes with some effective from 16th March, 2023, at this time there has been no announcement of any surcharges from North East Asia (China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Philippines) to Australia, however that could change at any time in the next week.
As far as airfreight is concerned, a huge volume of cargo moves globally via Middle East hubs, so with all flights effectively cancelled at present between these hubs and Asia, Europe and Australia, capacity has been cut dramatically. Flights to Australia and New Zealand now relying on Asian airlines to move any cargo without long delays. The rates from Asian carriers have increased as a result of the increased demand and the additional fuel costs the airlines are now facing.
Please bear in mind the Middle East situation has thrown shipping/airline schedules, fuel costs and surcharges into chaos across the globe and there could be further changes in costs at any moment, we are monitoring the situation closely and will advise further as we receive additional information from shipping lines, airlines and various industry news sources.