News & Insights

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

Brexit and the COVID pandemic has put global supply chains, and the people who work in them, into the public consciousness for probably the first time. As disruptions impact supplies of consumer goods, leaving empty shelves and fears grow for Christmas stock availability, people are asking ‘wha... Read more

Despite continuing global demand and freight rates breaking all records, vessel schedule reliability hit an all-time low in August and now ports have begun to turn away empty containers, due to the build-up of equipment that is delayed in its removal as a consequence. Although schedule reliabi... Read more

Multiple issues are negatively impacting container haulage operations from ports across the UK, with inevitable financial and service impacts, which are likely to impact every importer of full containers. In the worst cases, if no action is taken, importers may face very significant additional ch... Read more

To the consternation of many shippers, the Government is changing the start dates for new border checks and processes for imports and exports with the EU. The good news is that Metro’s experts can protect your supply chain from these changes and simplify customs compliance, with our intelligent... Read more

Despite the massive challenges, our air freight team continue to find solutions for critical cargo and our Sea/Air services are invaluable for time-sensitive shipments. With options from across Asia, via a choice of hubs including Singapore, Colombo and Dubai, we offer the widest choice of servic... Read more