Maersk has launched very welcome additional service on the southbound Asia tradelane. They have introduced extra vessels and added extra port calls adding much needed capacity to the market place. Direct calls NZ include Lyttelton, Tauranga, Auckland & Port Chalmers.

Good news indeed

The CAFCA has received advice from Patrick that work will recommence at their Port Botany (Sydney) terminal at 9.00am today (Friday 27/05).

Import time slots have been released and entry will be permitted from 08.30am today for all trucks.

Transport operators will receive notification of week-end slot availability later this morning.

Patrick is still sorting out with shipping lines all export receival dates. All export receivals are currently cut off  until this comes out.

The general situation from Europe and the Mediterranean is that there is a shortage of space on all vessels out of Europe to Asai and Central America (in the case of Hamburg Sud), once containers have arrived at those transhipment points there is furthe space shortage on second leg vessels to New Zealand.

Normally we would have expected space problems to have eased by now heading in to December but to date they haven't. This is largely due to the fact that shipping lines have cancelled services meaning that where there were once 5 sailings a week ex Europe there are now just 3 as opposed to any increase in trade.

We will try to keep delays to a minimum and advise you of short shipments as soon as we can. we are in constant contact with shipping lines regarding the situation.

Please allow for at least one week longer than expected for your freight to arrive from Europe.