Royal Mail experiences severe service disruption to international export services following a cyber incident, flooding and extreme weather affect services in parts of Australia, New Zealand, California and Nevada.

Macro Update:

Royal Mail is experiencing severe service disruption to their international export services following a cyber incident. They are temporarily unable to dispatch items to overseas destinations. Read more detail in our UK section below.

Flooded roads continue to affect postal services between Croydon and Karumba in Australia. In New Zealand, there are delays of 1-3 working days in the Upper North Island areas that continue to be affected by Cyclone Hale. Read more below in our Australia and New Zealand below.

Severe weather and flooding is causing delays in California and Nevada. To learn more, head over to our USA section below.

Chinese New Year is expected to cause disruption throughout the period which will lead to knock on delays.

The following public holidays may lead to delays in the processing and delivery of your shipments to the following countries: 

• 16/01/2023: USA - Martin Luther King Jr Day
• 23/01/2023 - 27/01/2023: China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore - Chinese New Year/ Spring Festival

Service Updates:

Australia & New Zealand

While flooded roads continue to affect postal services between Croydon and Karumba, delivery services have resumed to some areas between Cairns and Croydon. Affected postcodes include 4890, 4891 and 4892. 

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

Due to road closures on the Bruce Highway, there will be delivery delays of up to 4 days for Parcel Post and mail items between Townsville and Cairns. Other affected postcodes include 4737, 4757, 4800, 4805, 4807.

Aramex: 

Services are affected in Adelaide, Brisbane, Capricorn Coast, Geelong, Melbourne, Townsville and Wollongong. Read more about Aramex disruptions here.

New Zealand Post: 

There are delays of 1-3 working days in the Upper North Island areas that continue to be affected by Cyclone Hale, including:

• Parcel deliveries in the Northland, Bay of Plenty, and Gisborne areas
• Mail and parcel deliveries have been restored in the Coromandel area and East Cape, however previous road closures in Northland, Coromandel and the East Coast of the North Island will delay items moving in and out of these areas for the rest of this week.

Asia

Chinese New Year and Spring festival will lead to business closures as the region observes the public holiday. Expect disruption leading up to, during and after the period.

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

Direct injection International services at this time: No delays

US & Canada

FedEx

Severe weather and flooding is causing delays in California and Nevada. FedEx are implementing contingency plans to help restore service as soon as possible in areas where it has been disrupted. Read more about areas affected here.

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.

UK

Royal Mail

Royal Mail is experiencing severe service disruption to our international export services following a cyber incident. Royal Mail are temporarily unable to despatch items to overseas destinations. To support faster recovery when the service is restored and to prevent a build-up of export items in the Royal Mail network, we’re asking customers not to post international items until further notice via Royal Mail. Read more on the Royal Mail website here.

FedEx:

Due to the runway closure at Stansted Airport (UK), we are adjusting our regular service schedules on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for both FedEx and TNT international inbound shipments to minimize the impact on our customers. Stansted Airport will be closing their runway overnight for resurfacing works from 8 January to 25 March 2023. We have contingency plans in place to minimize disruption to our operations over this period, which include: 

• Areas of the South East of England will not receive early morning or noon deliveries. End of day delivery commitment remains. 
• Areas of Dublin, Ireland will not receive early morning or noon deliveries. End of day delivery commitment remains

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

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

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.