Freight volumes in Asia and Europe continue to grow, congestion in the West and the US has become a new normal, spot freight rates are still high, and container shortages have entered a cycle

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The industry predicts that freight volumes from Asia to Europe will continue to grow into the third quarter, while delays in US and European ports will continue to constitute a major bottleneck in the supply chain.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicts that retail spending and consumer demand may further surge this year, and said it may increase by 8.2%. According to NRF data, the substantial increase in demand may lead to a maximum increase of 23% in container volume in the first half of the year.
Shippers in Europe are in a similar situation to shippers in the United States. Port congestion is a major source of anxiety, and the lack of containers exacerbates these difficulties.
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Especially in the United Kingdom, due to the problem of the space for storing empty containers, delays in the delivery of containers have increased significantly. According to data from Container xChange, an online container platform, “The trade interruption and continued congestion after Brexit are causing a serious accumulation of containers in British ports.”
"The major ports in the UK, the Port of Felixstowe, Liverpool and Southampton are facing severe traffic congestion, and some shipping companies are also increasing surcharges." Container xChange CEO Johannes Schlingmeier said. "To make matters worse, some shipping companies are now unloading cargo at EU ports Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp to avoid congestion in the UK."
▍Los Angeles/Long Beach congestion becomes the new normal
At the same time, the congestion that has plagued US ports has not alleviated at all. Almost every link in the international supply chain indicates that if the freight volume does not decrease in the second half of the year, this kind of congestion will last at least until the summer, or even longer.
Executives and industry leaders from many ports, shipping companies, terminal operators, non-vessel carriers (NVOCC), third-party logistics providers (3PL), intermodal transport providers (IEP), and the International Terminal and Warehouse Union (ILWU) According to the sources, recent indicators such as truck driver waiting time, container detention time, port ship quantity and frame availability have generally stabilized, which indicates that the congestion situation has not substantially improved, but it has not deteriorated, and it is becoming a new normal.
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"New normal" delivery time, the goods are expected to arrive on the west coast of the United States plus 4 to 5 weeks
Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said the Southern California port is taking urgent measures to control multiple factors that cause congestion. Port and terminal operators want to increase productivity as much as possible, but this will take at least the summer.
How long the congestion will last depends largely on the number of imports from now to the beginning of the peak season in August. Gene Seroka said that so far this year, weekly imports are "30% to 40% higher" than the port's throughput in 2019 and previous years.
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▍The spot freight rate is still high
The spot freight rates of containers from Asia to Europe remained basically unchanged last week, which obviously helped the carrier to lock in the shipper by significantly increasing the contract price. In the Trans-Pacific region, demand has not decreased, and BCO is working hard to reach new deals with carriers.
According to the Freightos Baltic Freight Index (FBX), the freight rate for 40' containers from Asia to Northern Europe dropped slightly, from US$8,004 a week ago to US$7,947. In the same period last year, the FBX index was only $1,453/FEU.
For the western Mediterranean port, the spot freight recorded by FBX was US$8,006/FEU, slightly higher than the US$7,926 a week ago.
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In addition, in practice, shippers usually pay much higher than spot fees to ensure the availability of containers and spaces, while goods shipped to the UK need to pay additional surcharges.
Since the possibility of a sharp drop in the spot price of this route is very small, the shippers who have so far been reluctant to accept the shipping company’s new contract offer have found that as long as they have goods to ship, it is better to accept the new terms instead Continue to speculate in the freight market, risking to pay more to put the goods at risk of being dumped.
A person in charge of NVOCC said: "We had to reluctantly accept the $6,500/40' ‘offer’, and last year our bid was $2,250."
At the same time, according to FBX records, spot freight from Asia to the West Coast of the United States rose 4% this week to US$4,550/FEU, while freight to East Coast ports fell 2.8% to US$5,499/FEU.
Compared with the same period last year, the immediate freight rates to the West Coast and East Coast of the United States increased by 244% and 116% respectively.