Rotterdam and Antwerp are facing increasing congestion this week as strike action from auxiliary companies significantly disrupts container handling operations at Europe’s two busiest ports.
Flemish pilotage services have only been working during office hours since Monday in a dispute over recent federal pension reforms, severely disrupting vessel arrivals and departures in the Belgian hubs of Antwerp and Zeebrugge.
In Rotterdam, container lashing companies embarked on a two-day strike on Wednesday in a dispute over working conditions and wages. The strike is affecting all major terminals in Rotterdam: APM Terminals Maasvlakte II, Hutchinson Ports Delta II, ECT Delta and Rotterdam World Gateway.
A Maersk advisory said the suspension of services was significantly impacting operations, given that lashing is critical to the safe securing and release of containers onboard vessels.
Kuehne + Nagel echoed Maersk’s concerns in an advisory of its own, warning that in addition to the impact on container vessel handling, the 48-hour strike at Rotterdam will significantly disrupt inland container transport operations.
“These developments place further strain on the port, which was already significantly affected by last weekend’s storm-related closures,” Kuehne + Nagel noted.
The strikes add further pain to the overall Asia-Europe trade lane that continues to present shippers with the worst schedule reliability among the major ocean corridors. On-time performance recorded in September was 23%, according to industry analyst Xeneta.
While the performance is a slight improvement on the 17% reliability seen in August, persistent port congestion across the main North Europe gateways is a factor keeping schedule reliability at dismal levels.
Details please refer to the JOC news.
Source: JOC