Australia Port Delays

Ocean, road and rail operations are affected and as a result, many carriers have begun to implement port congestion surcharges for containers departing or arriving into Sydney terminals.

Furthermore, the east coast of Australia experienced extreme weather this month causing further disruptions to sailing schedule integrity and resulting in vessel bunching, out of window arrivals and port call rotation changes. 

The severe weather and the aforementioned labour shortages have impacted the ability of shipping lines to evacuate empty containers from Port Botany, causing severe congestion at the empty container parks, particularly in Sydney.

More than 30,000 containers are estimated to be sitting idle inside the empty container parks due to the imbalance of laden containers received into Sydney that haven’t been able to be “re-positioned” or exported back out of Sydney as empty containers. This empty container park congestion has now reached crisis point with many empty container parks reaching capacity and some even refusing to take more empties citing operational safety concerns.

As a result, some carriers have today announced that they will not be taking any bookings for containers to Australia until further notice.

We expect additional costs and delays as a consequence, which will be communicated to you at the earliest possible opportunity. We are working closely with carriers and partners to facilitate the continued smooth transportation of your freight in this daily changing situation. 

For any urgent questions or discuss alternative transport solutions, please contact your local Woodland representative or drop us a line here.