Tick tock, get the stock: ship now to stay ahead of the game

Importers are urged to prioritise planning and shipping now, moving cargo earlier than normal, ahead of peak sales for the November and December period to ensure supply chain continuity and adequate stock holdings.

Timeline breakdown:

While an average of four weeks is now required to secure a booking for sailings from Asia, another two weeks should be accounted for given the delays at the South African ports. Therefore, importers should brace themselves for a combined average sailing time of four weeks – 10 weeks in total to move goods from Asia to SA. 

The impact of the following key factors also needs to be continually assessed and considered:

• Blank sailings and inconsistent sailing schedules
• Sea freight capacity constraints and equipment imbalances
• Freight surcharges (PSS/GRI’s)
• Strong airfreight demand

The debacle brought about by the Red Sea crisis has resulted in shipping lines routing around the Cape of Good Hope. In the knock-on effect is lengthier sailing times for the Europe-Asia trade lane of up to an additional three weeks.

To stem these delays, carriers have added capacity to the sailing fleet by removing vessels on less profitable routes. In fact, the Asia-South Africa trade lane was severely affected when a large vessel (carrying 10,000 TEUs) had to be removed from the SA trade lane onto the EU trade lanes.

To satisfy the SA trade, carriers have introduced smaller vessels carrying less than 5,000 TEUs. This has brought about reduced sailing capacity to South Africa with several blank sailings being introduced which means that there is no sailing for that week on the Asia-SA trade route due to the lack of vessels.

Although a sailing date may be secured, lack of equipment for loading is posing another complexity due to the container imbalance brought about by the shift in trade routes.

Severe congestion is building up at Singapore, meaning carriers would need to create capacity to clear the backlogs from this major transhipment port. This can only be done by introducing more blank sailings from Asia and routing vessels to the Singapore trade lane.

Due to the lack of capacity on the Asia-SA trade route, aggressive freight increases have been implemented by carriers and are expected to reach the $10,000 mark as the Asia-SA trade officially enters peak season.

Durban port remains on a tiered release of containers and the booking system for a vehicle to uplift a container from the port remains restricted. Our road haul partners are currently experiencing an average delay of three days in order to secure a booking to uplift containers.

The anchorage delay at Durban port has however decreased from an average of 21 days listed earlier this year to a new average of 10 days. Transnet's recent improvement in port delays is solely due to reduced volume, with no enhancements being made by the company.

The worst performing ports in the world

The Global Container Port Index developed by The World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, recently ranked South Africa’s four container ports among the worst-performing ports in the world. Cape Town ranked last of the 405 ports listed in the index, with Ngqura second last placed at 404. Durban port ranked at 399 and Port Elizabeth at position 391.

The delays experienced at South African ports has made the decision easier for carriers to route smaller vessels into SA and allocate the larger vessels to more profitable trade lanes. 

Air freight capacity on a global level has increased by an average of 10% due to the delays on the sea freight trade. We anticipate this to grow in coming weeks together with an increase in air freight rates as importers look for relief from the delays in transit on sea freight.