News & Insights

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

The container shortage that is currently impacting Asia supply chains, has led lines to stop accepting shipment bookings from Ningbo, while the suspension of Southern China feeder operations, because of COVID, will impact key ports until after Chinese New Year 2021. Due to the severe lack of c... Read more

As Boris’ dinner with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, fails to end Brexit trade deadlock, the deadline for the end of the transition period is looming, and it’s looking likely that any deal needs to be struck by Sunday, or the UK is leaving the EU without one. ... Read more

After 31st December 2020, EU trade agreements will not apply to the UK, which is why trade negotiators are seeking to reproduce the effects of existing EU agreements, to ensure continuity of trading arrangements for UK businesses after the transition period ends. From 1st January 2021, if no t... Read more

As the Asia peak season rumbles on and the carriers struggle to meet demand, cargo rollovers are increasing at the busiest transhipment ports. After a global decline in rollovers during September, the average container rollover rate at leading transshipment ports rose in October. This time ... Read more

Members of the Unite union employed at Heathrow Airport commenced their first 24 hour strike stoppage on Tuesday 1st December, in a dispute over what they claim are savage wage cuts imposed on the workforce through a “brutal fire and rehire programme” Heathrow says the Unite strike ac... Read more