News / Port strikes would expose airfreight's vulnerability to a 'capacity crisis'

Concern is mounting over the impact of looming US east and Gulf coast port strikes on the nation’s airfreight, with e-commerce already hoovering-up capacity as peak season nears.

As reported in The Loadstar last week, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) will finalise contract demands and prep US east and Gulf coast port members for a 1 October strike, should agreement not be reached with employer group the United States Maritime Alliance.

That timing has left cargo owners and their partners building-in contingencies for the strikes increasingly worried over the viability of the obvious solution, airfreight.

US Airforwarders Association executive director Brandon Fried said the threat of the port strike had already led to shippers moving volumes to west coast gateways, and the strike now had “the potential to be extremely disruptive” for the US airfreight sector.

“Port strikes will inevitability lead to a spike in airfreight activity,” Mr Fried told The Loadstar. “This will largely be as a consequence of importers and beneficial cargo owners’ concerns about the holiday season.

“But its timing could not be worse, because if ocean-going cargo does start flying, it will expose another mounting concern in airfreight: e-commerce.”

DHL’s E-Commerce Trends Report has warned logistics providers they could expect a 12-fold increase in online orders by 2030, amounting to an extra $8.5trn in global trade.

Spearheading this surging trend are emergent Chinese platforms Shein and Temu, which in 12 months of operating have found themselves shifting four- and five-times as much as Chinese legacy outfit Alibaba, with Shein alone responsible for some 20% of all global fast-fashion sales.

“Spiking e-commerce demand has been gobbling up a lot of the available [air] capacity into the US in recent months,” Mr Fried continued. “So, all these factors coming together could leave airfreight exposed.

“If e-commerce demand remains high [and no one The Loadstar has spoken to believes it will fall off in the near future] and you have the strikes, then all you need is a big product roll-out for a capacity crisis.”