Southern California Port Update | Road | Drayage

Since the start of COVID-19, we have seen a fluctuation in all aspects of the transportation industry. As the uncertainty of COVID restrictions continues, we are facing an influx of container traffic across Southern California ports. Ocean bookings in Asia and Europe to the US West Coast have tightened capacity and are rolling bookings.

This influx of containers to the port of LA/Long Beach combined with the ports operating with COVID personnel restrictions has created massive port congestion across all terminals.

This is leading to:
• Lack of available chassis
• Long terminal wait times
• Increase of demurrage

US manufacturers and retailers are utilizing the ports as a storage facility due to their warehouses being at capacity, which has caused a pile up of imports across all terminals. If this trend from major retailers and manufacturers continues, ports will run out of yard storage for incoming shipments, resulting in a further rise of congestion and unavailability.

We are seeing a response from vessels utilizing other ports, such as Oakland, increasing congestion there as volumes rise. We are also seeing a response from the terminals to void appointment exemptions and not accept LFD extension requests. Terminals will continue to charge demurrage as they believe importers will continue to use terminals as their personal storage facilities.

Please reach out to lax.road@us.dsv.com with any questions or concerns on this topic.