By Richie Lin    Photo：CANVA

In these four to six months, we have witnesses shipping lines used blank sailings to keep the freight rates from decreasing sharply. In simple terms, a blank sailing is when a shipping line cancels a scheduled vessel call on a specific loop or service. The service may skip a port, or the entire voyage may be cancelled. For cargo owners, that means:

• Bookings get rolled to later vessels
• Transit times stretch unpredictably
• Inventory and distribution plans are disrupted

Shipping lines use blank sailings as a capacity management tool: if demand is weak, they cancel sailings to keep vessel utilization high and support rates; if networks are congested or delayed, they may blank sailings to “reset” schedules and recover rotation reliability.

Since COVID and the subsequent demand and congestion cycles, blank sailings have become a “normal” part of carrier strategy, not just an emergency measure. During periods of weak demand, cancelling sailings is the fastest leverage shipping lines can pull to rebalance supply and demand on a given trade. And the efficiency of ports and rail companies hasn’t improved yet even though the Covid-19 has ended for more than three years. The transit time from Asian countries to the IPI (Interior Point of Intermodal) hasn’t improved to the level before pandemic breakout in 2020.

Therefore, the replenishment cycles of the USA importers became fragile given the impacts of blank sailings and inefficiency of ports and rail companies. Even though we are unlikely to control the mind sets of shipping lines, unions of longshoremen and railways, we still have one option to choose because of the intertwined freeways all over the USA. That option is the so-called Transload. The meaning of transload basically represents unloading cargo from one vehicle and loading to the other one. As for the FCL shipments importing into USA inland cities, transload means unloading cargo from containers at the discharging ports and loading to the trailers and trucks and delivering the cargo to the final destinations.

Since the cargo doesn’t have to wait with the containers to be transferred from ports to IPI, it can be delivered to the final destinations earlier than the original sea to railway intermodal procedures. In this article, I will dig into the procedures and related charges in transload. And I will only explain the procedures happening in the USA soil because the other parts such as picking up containers from factories and ocean freight are all similar as the normal FCL arrangements.

1.Arrival Notice

For the transload cargo, we will only book to the ports when we send the booking to the shipping lines. Sometimes, customers would ask us to change the container stopping at the discharged ports instead of being transferred to IPI because they want to switch to transload procedure. However, we need to apply for the change 10 days before vessels arriving the ports because it takes time for shipping lines to send notice to vessels and port operations. Shipping lines will send the arrival notice to our agent in USA which is the consignee on MBL 7 days before vessels reach the ports of USA. Then our agent will transfer the arrival notice to the customs clearance brokers of customer to do the preparations for filing the customs clearance. Since the containers will be picked up at ports, the import customs clearance will be filed 5 days before the vessel calls the discharged ports. 

2.Import customs clearance:

The customs brokers will file the entry to CBP and cause the customs clearance charge. If the products requiring FDA certificate or Lacey Act, it will cause extra FDA or Lacey Act filing fees. Customer can discuss with customs broker and the CBP about what HS code to USE clearly. And it will cause customs inspection charges if the containers are selected by CBP to run customs inspections. After customs released at ports, importers will need to pay the import duty, HMF (Harbor Maintenance Fee), and MPF (Merchandize Processing Fee) to CBP before picking up the containers.

3.Picking up containers from ports to transload warehouse:

After vessels arrive at the ports, containers will be discharged at the terminals of the ports. Normally the terminals will charge THC (Terminal Handling Charge). But THC in USA is already included in the ocean freight rate from Asia, it will not be charged again on USA soil. Since the final delivery place on the MBL is the port, containers would stay at port and wait for customs to be released by CBP. Our Agent will check constantly if the container can be port released and customs released. Once the container is port released, it will show the LFD (Last Free Day) of demurrage. Shipping lines usually provide 2 days free demurrage and trucking companies need to pick up the container before the LFD. However, truck cannot pick up the container if it doesn’t show the customs released. Therefore, customers should realize that demurrage will be calculated continuingly even though the problems relate to customs clearance. After the container is port-released and customs released, trucking company will pick up the container from port and tow it to the transload warehouse. Trucking companies will charge the drayage and two days chassis. Shipping lines usually give four days free detention starting from the date of container picked up by truck. Therefore, trucks will bring the empty container return to the ports right after the cargo is unloaded from container to avoid the detention charge. Usually, the transload warehouse will load the cargo into trucks or tailers for final delivery on the same day of unloading from containers. However, if it cannot match so perfectly, the cargo needs to be stored in the warehouse for some days. This will happen storage charge.

4.Delivering cargo to the final destinations:

It will usually use the 53ft trailer for the interstate road transportation in the USA. 53ft trailer can load the volumes as much as the 40HQ container can do. Warehouse will count the packages again correctly before loading the cargo into trailers. Sometimes, the warehouse will charge extra labor if they find out the container is floor-loaded and there are too many cartons. After loading the cargo into trailer, the transload company will put on new seal and issue a new delivery order to list the destination details, cargo details, and new seal numbers. It will take 4 to 7 days for trailers taking cargo from ports such as Seattle, Tacoma, and Los Angeles to inland cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis, and Detroit. When trailer arrives at the destination, trailer will stay to wait for cargo to be unloaded. So, it will happen waiting hour charge if the unloading takes more than 2 hours.

One important advice is that if customer wants to choose the transload service in USA, we cannot book the container to the ports of Canada like the regular IPI service. Transload can shorten the transit time for the cargo bound for inland cities in USA, but the total charges will be higher than the charges using traditional FCL intermodal transportation. 

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