Why Delays Occur

Why Delays Occur

Weather

Weather places the largest impact on a good’s journey. To effectively maintain health and safety, ports halt activity during severe weather patterns- from high winds to storms. Unloading and loading becomes unsafe, machinery like cranes cannot be safely used as they could swing containers. With storms bring high tides and rough seas, which impact a ship’s ability to berth at port. Over this time of year, the Far East enters its Typhoon Season which has already causes severe delays across China and other major Eastern Ports. 

Weather also affects air and land freight. Severe storms cause flight delays or even cancellations. With land freight, heavy rain and snow impact trains and trucks ability to transit. Furthermore, flooding may even occur causing major disruptions and diversions. 

Infrastructure Issues

Infrastructure at ports and airports, like any machinery can experience glitches or break down. Cranes and other port machinery have been known to break down mid operation; occasionally leaving the containers they were lifting stuck underneath them. 

At airports and rail lines, signaling issues may halt the movement of goods as it affects carriers from being able to safely track the movement and ensure no crashes occur. 

For road freight, roadwork maintenance brings temporary traffic lights, lanes closings and increased traffic. Journeys will take longer due to the traffic or if roadworks are drastic, hauliers are forced to take completely different routes.

Geopolitical conflicts

War and poor trade relations have caused significant delays over this year. 

The ongoing conflict across the Middle East has caused significant delays due to the necessary rerouting of flights and ships. The major route through the Red Sea and Suez Canal is currently being avoided by many major shipping lines due to previous attacks on cargo ships as they passed through. Instead, these lines have chosen to go around Africa to reach Europe causing longer journey times. 

Customs and Border Enforcement

Even if a good has been cleared by customs when entering a country; Port Health and Border Security may still hold containers for inspections. In some instances they may be randomly selected for a routine search. This typically involves an x-ray and radiation scans. Most instances however, they will be targeted searches, largely focused on special items that require licensing like foodstuff, livestock or chemicals. 

This process can be tedious as enforcement may require proper samples and testing or even to fully de-van the container to inspect. The process can be anywhere from a few days if it is x-rayed to several weeks if it needs to be completely emptied for inspection.

Port Congestion and Blank Sailings

All the factors above do create port congestion when they cause delays. However, port congestion can occur outside of these factors. Increased demand for specific ports and vessel bunching create port congestion. In larger ports like Antwerp or Rotterdam, this may place lasting effect on arrival as these ports are major hubs for the feeder vessels following the deep sea journey. Smaller ports like Dublin may struggle to handle the large demand and will be forced to divert ships to neighbouring ports like Waterford. 

If delays become too long, shipping lines may choose to blank sail, skipping the port, or even cancelling the whole journey. Cargo scheduled on these routes are rotated onto the next available journey which could be a week or longer. 

Additional Causes

There are a multitude of other factors that could place delays these are as such:

• National Holidays
• Strikes
• Incidents at Ports
• Issues with vessel