Many of you will be aware of the ongoing delays at the Port of Felixstowe. Port closures due to storms/high winds, increased traffic and COVID restrictions have really taken their toll on the ability of the UK’s busiest container port to function as we’d like.
The Port of Felixstowe has now announced that they will not accept the return of empty containers that have left the terminal until further notice.
Shared Container (LCL) Shipments
Unfortunately, given that our consolidation containers from Southern and Northern China unpack outside the port, this will further delay the unpacking of the containers, which are already behind normal schedule. This will affect Shippo’s customers with shipments from Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Xingang and India among others.
Our containers from Ningbo and Shanghai are routed through Southampton so they may see a minor delay or a day or two due to the knock on affect of shipping lines re-routing vessels but should be largely unaffected.
Full Container (FCL) Shipments
Due to ongoing problems with the VBS (vehicle booking system) the port are only accepting a very reduced amount of trucks to collect containers from the quay. This is causing a huge backlog when booking full container deliveries. To counteract this, you may have noticed that your Shippo advisor may have been booking your delivery slot around two weeks in advance.
Unfortunately, these issues are exacerbated by the fact that hauliers are being held at the quay for many hours leading to some now refusing to collect from the port at all.
This has had a significant impact on our operations which we can only apologise for. We are doing everything we can to work around the situation, but with the situation as it stands, we are unfortunately limited in scope to what we can do.
We will ensure that all customers affected by delays caused by the issues at the port are kept fully updated with progress of their shipments.
Please feel free to contact us on 0203 384 0498 if you wish to discuss this further.