Flooding continues to affect services in Australia. Shanghai lockdowns affect other Chinese ports and rail strikes in the UK could spell congestion to both rail and roads next month.

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.

Airfreight diverted from lockdown-hit Shanghai Pudong (PVG) is clogging up China’s other major airports, causing a shortage of pallets for exports. There is also a massive reduction of air freight volumes, due to factories in the surrounding areas being under lockdown. Therefore, various measures have been taken, such as significantly increasing airport storage fees, or temporary embargoes on inbound cargo. Overall, exports are not seriously affected yet, but it has caused problems for airlines which don’t have enough available PMC pallets to load export cargo. Read more about Covid restrictions affecting services below in our Asia section below.

Some 40,000 UK workers at Network Rail could stage “the biggest rail strike in modern history” – a response to pay freezes and a threat to the jobs of 2,500 workers. Between 26 April and 24 May, the staff will vote and, if there is a 50% turnout – a requirement of the 2016 Trade Union Act – the strike could begin in June. The strike will affect rail freight and could spell heavy congestion on roads for deliveries.

The UK government has allocated £20m (US$26m) to improve roadside facilities for HGV drivers and tackle the driver shortage in the UK. The funding is part of government agency National Highways’ existing £169m (US$220m) Users and Communities Fund. 

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. 

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

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, the West Coast, Invercargill, and Dunedin, and up to a day for parcels being sent across the rest of the country. 

Overnight fog in Christchurch has caused widespread delays to some Courier and International items destined for the South Island today. Contingency measures are in place, with a limited number of deliveries being completed today. Some items had to be held in Christchurch and will be delivered tomorrow.

Asia

China Post has updated that the processing of mail is temporarily affected at Shanghai, Changchun and Yanji mail processing centers due to COVID until further notice. This directly delays the processing, transiting and delivery of items. As result, the Post is unable to guarantee compliance with the agreed delivery standards.

FedEx: Given the improving situation in Shanghai, China, effective Monday, April 25th, the following services into Shanghai (PVG) Airport have been restored: 

• FedEx International Priority (IP) 
• FedEx International Economy (IE) 

Parcel shipments destined to Shanghai that are currently in transit via the FedEx network and will be delivered. To continue to manage volume into Shanghai (PVG) due to the continuation of the COVID-19 lockdown and staffing limitations, the following international freight services remain suspended until further notice: 

• FedEx International Economy Freight (IEF) 
• FedEx International Priority Freight (IPF) 
• FedEx International Priority 
• DirectDistribution (IPD) 
• All TNT Services

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: Operational and as per SLAs.

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, FedEx is currently experiencing service disruptions, which could result in temporary delays to services in Europe. You can read more about which services are affected here.

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.