European Weather Conditions:
Severe winter weather is impacting inland transport and port operations across Northern Europe at present. These conditions are affecting port operations and delays to vessel departures, as well as delaying many trucking schedules across the region.
Our European agents are monitoring the situation and working closely with carriers, ports, and local shipping lines to minimize disruptions wherever possible, however, some delays may be incurred due to the severity of the weather.
Suez Canal:
Several container ships have recently transited the Suez Canal East to West without attacks from Houthi rebels. Maersk Line, CMA-CGM Line and several smaller Asian lines have tested the crossing to date. It is believed several of these vessels disengaged their vessel tracking electronics to avoid detection, however there is no general return to regular services via the Canal at present.
In fact, CMA-CGM have this week announced that several planned transits via the Suez Canal on select Asia-Europe services have been re-routed via Cape of Good Hope due to heightened political tension in the Middle East. It is not expected that Suez Canal operations will return to normal for some time.
China port Situation:
We are seeing several vessels delayed departing North China/Taiwan/Korea ports due to vessel bunching and current weather conditions, a delay of some 4-6 days is applying at present. Our GPSM Customer Service Team are updating clients of any delays on a regular basis.
South East Asia-Australia Services:
Space is extremely tight at present from some South East Asian ports, particularly from Thailand and Indonesia, as bookings are very heavy prior to Chinese New Year closures in early-mid February.