News & Insights

Many British companies trading with the EU are still failing to understand the extent of their legal obligations to comply with the origin rules of the EU-UK trade deal and could face disruptive enforcement action by customs authorities, when a ‘grace’ period for UK imports ends on the 1st Ja... Read more

Congestion at both ends of the critical Asia-North Europe (this still includes the UK) shipping trade is wrecking vessel schedules, with the average delay of container ships completing a round-trip loop rising by over two weeks, as carriers skip congested ports at both ends, and quite often in be... Read more

The challenges of finding tank containers and getting them booked for vessel loading at origin have been growing, making the transport of dangerous and complex goods more and more difficult. Widespread disruption and delays in the global ocean supply chain have cut available transport capacity... Read more

DP World has opened an 11.5 acre container park near Southampton, to increase storage capacity during the peak pre-Christmas season and work has begun on a fourth berth at London Gateway container port, to increase supply chain resilience and create more capacity for the world’s largest vessels... Read more

Frustrated shippers, trying to avoid further container shipping delays, by switching modes, has driven air freight and charter rates to climb by up to ten times in a single week. Further imbalance between supply and demand is emerging, with the airlines conversion of passenger aircraft into te... Read more

Taking advantage of current market dynamics shipping lines are trying to move the biggest shippers - retailers and manufacturers - onto two-year terms for 2022, with some container carriers trying to negotiate even longer periods, of three or even four years. Contract rate spreads from base po... Read more

Passenger aircraft pre-Covid supplied at least 50% of all global airfreight capacity in the ‘belly-hold” space under the passenger deck and the return of air travel will ease congestion and rate pressure on the time-sensitive mode. Passenger airlines will begin to... Read more

With global supply chains continuing to struggle against pandemic-related congestion and disruption and traditional peak seasons being extended, or seemingly never ending, we are anticipating a pre-Chinese New Year rush in December/ January and would recommend planning supply chain... Read more

After a break of more than two years the UK freight industry’s only dedicated conference and exhibition - Multimodal - has returned to Birmingham’s NEC centre and, as it is just down the road, we’ve popped in for a look around. While the various COVID lockdowns and restrictions played ou... Read more

For decades, offshoring and global sourcing have offered lower labour and operating costs, wider product ranges and opportunities to reach new markets. The pandemic has exposed their supply chain vulnerabilities. Customers are expecting faster and faster deliveries, but global supply chai... Read more

The British International Freight Association (BIFA) the freight forwarding trade association is launching a campaign to encourage schools to promote careers in logistics, forwarding and the supply chain, and Metro is helping them, with public-speaking support at Multimodal. The COVID pandemic... Read more

The Chinese government has implemented strict controls on the use of electricity that will seriously affect production in factories across ten critical provinces and could see US$120 billion of trade flows delayed. With severe disruption throughout the supply chain from China, this adds a new ... Read more