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Seajet |
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Late
December |
Pacific Carriers Create Dear Customers and Friends of Seajet: This email deals with the artificially produced space shortage in Asia in general but with view of the port of Boston in particular, as Boston is affected two-fold due to the fact that there is only one carrier (COSCO in conjunction with YML. K-Line and Hanjin) with direct service to Boston. Carriers have taken artificial shortage of available cargo space to a new level. Right before Chinese New Year COSCO (with its slot charter partners (YML, K-Line and Hanjin being the only ones with a weekly direct calls into Boston) have eliminated now 3 sailings omitting the following sailings: Qingdao Shanghai Ningbo Yokohama Boston 12/06/09 12/08/09 12/09/09 12/12/09 01/06/10 01/03/10 01/05/10 01/06/10 01/09/10 02/03/10 01/10/10 01/12/10 01/13/10 01/16/10 02/10/10 02/21/10 02/23/10 02/24/10 02/27/10 03/24/10 (sailing right after Chinese New Year) The second departure skipped in January was not announced and origin offices (nobody at the carriers knew here) only became aware of this when they were informed that no bookings would be released. In other cases carriers accepted bookings just to get the containers stuck in base ports such as Yokohama, Shanghai and Ningbo. In addition to COSCO’s direct All Water Service into Boston for which 2 departures in January were canceled COSCO and its partners also are skipping a departure every five weeks for all its other East Coast routes. Not to be outdone, NYK/OOCL/Hapag-Lloyd/Hyundai and APL announced that they will cut 1 AWS sailing per week to the US East Coast. Nobody has told us but I wonder if the carriers prefer filling up their much larger ships (8,000+TEUs) serving the West Coast ports and benefitting from the economy of scale. Ships serving the East Coast are typically limited to 3,000 – 4000 TEU capacity due to the limits caused by the Panama Canal. Departures from all Chinese and Far Eastern ports (Busan Korea in the north to Surabaya in the south) are being affected by the current situation. As it is impossible to consider all options for every container booked (by the time we have a consensus that choice may no longer be available) we are instructing our offices as follows: 1st Choice Ship on COSCO/YML/Hanjin/K-Line – AWE2 directly to Boston. This only if we can obtain a booking and as long as we know that there is a departure. Last but not least, the containers must originate at base ports, Hong Kong and Yantian. If from other ports (Jakarta, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Bangkok, Port Kelang etc.) we will check with you on a case by case basis. 2nd Choice Ship on another carrier to Boston or Worcester CY via New York. 3rd Choice Ship MLB to Boston or Worcester CY via West Coast port 4th Choice Ship to New York and clear customs there and then truck directly to importer or their designated delivery address. We realize that this is not an ideal situation but believe that we have to give our partners in Asia clear guidance how to proceed as they have to process over a 100 bookings and more per day in some offices. I assure you that we hate the current situation (there really is no other word than a complete mess) as much as you do but believe that with our current procedure we have taken the best steps to assure that your freight keeps moving. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this issue in more detail please feel free to contact us. Thank you as always for your trust and support. Best regards, Andreas
Bauermeister,
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Seajet Express Inc., 46 Arlington Street, Chelsea, MA 02150 - Telephone 617.884.0991 - www.seajet.com |
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