This week, COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai and flooding in Australia affect local services, US suspend trade relations with Russia and P&O knock on effects create chaos at Dover.

Macro Update:

Flooding and extreme weather conditions across New South Wales and Queensland continue to affect our ability to transport mail and parcels in both states. Read more in our Australia section below and via our latest service disruption update here.

FedEx suspends all services from Europe to Shanghai in response to COVID-19 restrictions and limited flight capacity. Read more in our Asia section below. 

Ningbo-Zhoushan Port Group said there was no noticeable arrival of containerships diverted from Shanghai so far, despite that city and its port is in the second week of indefinite lockdown. A spokesperson said: “We’re doing a good job of epidemic prevention and control to ensure continuous and stable operations. We don’t see that many ships previously berthed at Shanghai being moved to Ningbo-Zhoushan Port.” Waiting time for ships to berth in Shanghai is 24 to 48 hours. If the lockdown continues, liner operators may have to consider diversions to Ningbo or Shenzhen.

U.S. legislators voted last Thursday to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and ban oil imports from the country amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Senate unanimously voted to revoke most-favored nation status, or permanent normal trade relations as it's called in the U.S., for Russia and Belarus. The chamber separately passed a bill to ban imports of oil, gas and coal from Russia.

Fallout from the sacking of 800 seafarers by DP World subsidiary P&O Ferries continues to mount, with a major backlog of traffic at the entrance to Dover. Local authorities in Dover have said they would declare a ‘major incident’ in the town due to traffic gridlock created by trucks and other vehicles attempting to get into the port. According to Dover District Council, declaring a major incident would force government authorities to make a more robust response. Traffic at the port is expected to increase over the next week as travellers seek to get away ahead of the Easter break.

Please read various region information below for more details on Easter public holiday warehouse closures.

Service Updates:

Australia & New Zealand

 

Flooding and extreme weather conditions across NSW and Queensland are causing delivery delays for items coming in and out of these regions. Local deliveries in flood-affected areas continue to be impacted. Read further details on services affected in our help site article here.

 

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: A slight delay of 3-5 days.

 

Direct injection International services at this time: No delays

 

Australia Post: Local deliveries in flood-affected areas continue to be impacted. Read about Australia Post disruptions here.

 

Aramex: Services are affected across the country. Read more about Aramex disruptions here.

 

New Zealand Post: We are experiencing delivery delays of up to 3 days in Wellington, Waikato, Hawkes Bay and Palmerston North, and up to a day for parcels being sent across the rest of country.

Asia

 

Hong Kong 

 

Please be informed that our HK warehouse will be closed on 5 April for Qingming Festival Holiday and from 15 April to 18 April for the Easter holiday.

 

• The positive cases continue dropping these days and there are less than 3,000 cases reported this week.
• The local economic activities in HK seem to be resuming to normal and the government will relax social distancing measures from 21 April 
• The cross border transportation between Shenzhen & Hong Kong continues to improve, however, the lead time is still longer and costs are higher than before. 

 

Shanghai 

• Due to the number of new positive cases remaining high in Shanghai, the city will continue the lockdown until follow-up management and control measures are decided based on the result of the citywide acid testing. 
• Ocean freight: vessel call and departure & terminal is running as normal. Laden containers could gate in terminals with EIR certificate and truckers’ covid test report within 48 hours. 
• Air freight: Most international and domestic flights have been cancelled. So almost all of our air freight cargo will be switched to departure from other airports in China. 
• Trucking: The inland transportation situation keeps changing subject to vendors’ and trucker’s locations. Trucking capacity in Shanghai is very limited. 
• Warehouse: Most of the warehouses will remain closed from 28th Mar until further notice.

FedEx

Due to the COVID-19 lockdown in China and the currently limited operations at Shanghai (PVG) Airport, as of April 5, and until further notice, FedEx International Economy Freight, FedEx International Express Freight and TNT Express Freight shipments (heavy-weight >68kgs) are temporarily suspended from Europe to Shanghai region. Customers can continue to ship time-critical parcel shipments using the FedEx International Priority and TNT Express product options.

US

 

Fulfillment services: Remain unaffected by delays and same day dispatch is being met as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Shipping services: We are seeing slight delays with Ground services in the USA. Average wait times of 3-5 days. 

Canada

 

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

UK

 

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Yodel and Royal Mail services:  No disruptions or delays

 

Royal Mail: No disruptions or delays

 

International from the UK: We are seeing slight delays for DDU, not DDP deliveries, where there is an IOSS number. Average delivery times of 5-8 day are now taking 8-11 days. We encourage all customers to have their IOSS number as this helps with improving the clearance process to deliver into the EU.

 

EU

FedEx

Due to internal and external events, we are currently experiencing service disruptions, which could impact your temporary service delays across the FedEx network, some customers may experience impacts as follows: 

• TNT intra-European Express - Shipments entering the network may face a 24 to 48 hour delay vs. quoted transit times. 
• FedEx Express parcel shipments to, from and within Europe may be delayed by 24 to 48 hours. FedEx International Priority Freight shipments may experience 48 hours vs. quoted transit times. 
• Non-conveyable shipments may experience longer delays vs. the above to, from and within Europe.

 

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Freight Forwarding Update:

 

Sea freight - Asia to north America

We’ve seen a slight drop in pricing for LCL and FCL, however rates are still elevated. 

Space: We continue to experience space issues with most carriers

Booking: We recommend booking well and truly in advance (5-6 weeks), we cannot guarantee that the space will always be available.

 

Sea Freight - Asia- Europe

Rates are still at record highs, although they have gone down slightly. 

Space: Continues to be a concern

Booking: We recommend booking well and truly in advance (5-6 weeks).

 

Sea Freight - Asia - Australia

Pricing is still relatively elevated.

Space: Continues to be a concern

Booking: We recommend booking in advance (4-5 weeks).

 

Air freight

COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to impact services and limit capacities globally.

 

Direct injection

B360 has its own Direct Injection network that runs from Sydney to the US, Hong Kong to Europe, Hong Kong to Australia and Hong Kong to the US. These channels are still very reliable, with transit times on average being 4-8 days, we see no changes as per the SLAs at this time.

 

To learn more about any of our updates or to make carrier changes, please reach out to us today.