By Richie Lin  Photo：Bernd Dittrich，Link：Unsplash

Just when we step into 2021, the supply chain problems haven’t been solved and coming Chines New Year Holidays make another big problem. Affected by the Covid-19 and the coming Chinese New Year, some drivers returned to their hometowns earlier, making it difficult to find a driver or a trailer!

Some trucking companies urgently recruit temporary drivers, and even find bulk trucks to transport containers. This happens every year, but this year is extremely difficult.Situation in Shanghai is even worse because people who leave Shanghai after January 28th must undergo nucleic acid testing for Covid-19 when arrive hometowns. Many truck drivers in Shanghai Port return home earlier than past years. As a result, drivers are hard to be found even if there is a trailer, and the price of the pick-up has skyrocketed recently.

Additionally, vessels delay the berthing schedule, so port opening information delays, then heavy containers cannot enter port as planned before, this causes skyrocketing drop-off fees, and more expensive second entry to port.

After all efforts to get the space and the containers but there was no enough place to drop off the containers, then containers have to stay with the trucks for longer time. The chain reactions caused problem of lack of drivers and trucks ever worser.

A trucking company even issued a notice for all forwarders of U.S. lane saying:

Due to the serious shortage of containers and the shortage of trailer capacity at the end of the year, the shipping agency companies are extremely difficult to transfer goods. In order to ensure that the goods can be in time, the company decided to cut orders on January 31. They will not accept new orders after January 31 to digest the heavy backlog waiting in the line.

Customers need to understand the skyrocketing pick-up fee and lack of truck drivers, and work closely with logistics providers to solve the problems smoothly.

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