Global port congestion has reportedly reached approximately 4.3 million TEUs of delayed vessel capacity, surpassing the four-million-TEU peak recorded during COVID
Much of the current disruption is concentrated in North Asia, where consecutive typhoons have affected Shanghai, Ningbo and other major Chinese ports. Some vessels are reportedly waiting six to eleven days, creating late departures, changing ETAs, rolled containers and port omissions.
Ocean congestion gets most of the attention, but the disruption doesn’t end when the container reaches the United States. Delayed vessels often arrive in clusters, releasing large amounts of freight into ports, transload facilities and warehouses at the same time.
That can create downstream pressure on domestic transportation, including:
- Reduced drayage and chassis availability
- Congested transload and distribution facilities
- Tightening California outbound truckload capacity
- Short-notice FTL requests when containers finally become available
- Increased demand for LTL shipments after containers are broken down
- Missed pickup and delivery appointments
- Longer warehouse dwell times
- Detention, storage and redelivery charges
- Less predictable FTL and LTL pricing
For importers, wholesalers and distributors, one delayed container can quickly become dozens of urgent domestic shipments. If the inbound freight misses its planned receiving window, the warehouse may need to reschedule labor, customers may need expedited deliveries, and shipments originally planned as economical LTL can turn into partial or full truckloads.
A few ways were preparing:
- Build additional time into both the ocean and domestic portions of the shipment.
- Avoid booking the final truck solely around the vessel’s original ETA.
- Monitor vessel location, terminal availability and actual container release.
- Give FTL and LTL providers advance notice, even when the pickup date is not finalized.
- Prepare pallet counts, dimensions, weights, freight classes and delivery requirements before the container is unloaded.
- Confirm whether deliveries require appointments, liftgates or limited-access service.
- Compare the cost of LTL, volume LTL, partial truckload and FTL before automatically selecting one mode.
- Establish backup capacity for important California outbound lanes.
- Keep customers updated with realistic delivery windows rather than best-case ETAs.
The biggest mistake we see is treating the ocean shipment, drayage, transload and final delivery as separate moves. When those pieces aren’t coordinated, a delay at the port can create avoidable costs across the entire shipment.
For those currently handling imported freight:
Are you seeing port congestion affect your domestic FTL or LTL operations yet? Where is the biggest problem drayage, warehouse availability, truck capacity, LTL service or unpredictable delivery dates?
I’m especially interested in what shippers and carriers are seeing around Los Angeles/Long Beach and California outbound freight.