News / Shippers draw up April Fools' Day contingency plans as new alliances launch

As the new alliance structure prepares to get underway tomorrow, with the Ocean and THE alliances launching services, shippers and forwarders are preparing for the possibility of severe supply chain disruption.

The drawing up of contingency plans was in part due to a growing sense of unease that shipping lines did not appear to be “on top of” managing the roll-out of the new groupings.

“The transition of the alliances has been hugely frustrating, in a very predictable way. We recently concluded annual ...