News / Poor information flow from carriers worse than blanked sailings, say angry shippers

29/04/2015

Shippers and forwarders are becoming increasingly concerned at the threat to their supply chains from confused messages coming from some container lines over revised ETAs of their goods.

They blame strategy of ocean carriers to blank sailings with little or no notice.

Carriers on the Asia-North Europe ...

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Andy Lane
April 29, 2015 at 1:27 pm
There are two processes in play here;
1) When do Lines/Alliances decide to blank sailings, and
2) When do they inform their Customers

For 2), agreed, this should be a given and notified within a few hours of the blanking decision being made. Shippers who feel some members of an Alliance are slow to notify them can always book with the more proactive ones.

For 1) it is maybe a little more complex – and required more collaboration between Line and Shipper. With rates as low as they are, anything less than 100% utilisation is loss-giving – sailings will be blanked. If the shippers are able to provide earlier and more accurate forecasts, decisions can be taken earlier – win-win.

It does always appear however that people prefer to bemoan a situation as opposed to actively looking for solutions – which is harder but more rewarding in the long term.

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