News & Insights

On the 17th December 2020 HM Government (HMG) released its 2025 Border Strategy document, which outlines its intentions for modernising the UK frontier and embraces many technologies and ideas pioneered by Metro. The 2025 UK Border Strategy sets out the government’s vision for the UK border ... Read more

With strong demand and container shortages continuing throughout the Christmas and New Year period, sea freight rates from Asia have not softened and show little sign of easing before the Chinese New Year (CNY) holidays in February - at the earliest. Consumer demand across Europe remains stron... Read more

In the course of 2020, a year which will go down in history as one of the most challenging in decades, we produced close to 300 news articles to keep our customers aware of the news and seismic events impacting their supply chains. We sent 70 email news bulletins to share the 300 stories, with... Read more

The continuing torrent of inbound containers from Asia has filled up all the terminal operating space at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, with bottlenecks spreading to the East Coast and Gulf ports, and congestion, vessel bunching, and equipment shortages expected to last until at least C... Read more

As 70% of England move to Tier 3 on Saturday and Wales announce strict new lockdown measures from the 28th December, we consider the impact of a further national lockdown on operational and freight infrastructure. The COVID pandemic has starkly highlighted our reliance on, and the fragility of... Read more

This year may become notorious for the global COVID pandemic, but its impact is having the most profound impact on global trade and supply chains, disrupting normal operations and tearing up the best-laid plans. This weekend the BBC reported how the Swedish furniture favourite, Ikea, was force... Read more

The COVID pandemic has simultaneously battered supply-chains and emphasised their importance, making many companies reconsider their approach to a critical business area, that is going to be under immense pressure as we move into 2021.  2020 highlighted, in a very big way, the need for th... Read more

While the president of the European Commission tells the European Parliament that there is a path to an agreement with the UK, the prime minister continues to view no deal as "the most likely outcome". With just two weeks till the end of the transition period, still no one really knows if a tr... Read more

Dramatic images on Twitter captured the 14,000 teu containership, ONE Apus, losing over a quarter of its load, in a catastrophic container stack collapse, that dumped over 1,800 boxes into the Pacific ocean on the 30th November. The Twitter image, shared by Container News, shows that most of t... Read more

The Department for International Trade has confirmed that current commodity codes will continue to be used for trade between Great Britain and the EU, when transition ends on 31st December and the UK has left the Single Market and EU Customs Code. From the start of 2021, the UK ... Read more

The rollout of COVID vaccines is slowly but surely restricting access to air freight services for other cargoes, at the same time that cargo handlers in the UK unveil massive price increases, that will directly impact the costs paid by air freight shippers. Just days into vaccine roll-outs and... Read more

Congestion at UK container ports which commenced in the Summer at Felixstowe, before filtering out to Southampton and London Gateway, is continuing despite all efforts, with Japanese carmaker Honda warning that production at its Swindon plant will be disrupted. Problems at the UK's container p... Read more