Typhoon Brings More Supply Chain Chaos In China!

This week a typhoon caused a lot of Supply Chain Chaos In China. More freight delays are expected in China this week, after typhoon forced the closure of Shanghai’s container port and airport over the weekend. And, last week, the typhoon brought devastating rainfall and flooding in China’s central Henan province, disrupting operations at Zhengzhou (CGO), a major commercial shipping airfreight hub for carriers such as Cargolux.

A spokesperson for the airline said on Friday: “Flight delays have been experienced, but things are returning to normal. Although cargo flights are not restricted, customs processing of imports into CGO are delayed, but exports are not affected.”

However, as the typhoon headed towards the city of Zhoushan, making landfall on Sunday, it prompted the closure of Shanghai’s air, sea and rail hubs just 150km north. Warehousing services have also stopped container loading and deliveries to terminals.

Shanghai has been closed since Friday and port operations are expected to reopen 28 July around 10pm. Ningbo port was also closed on Friday, but terminals and depots have now resumed. We expect to see vessel berthing delays of four-to-six days at each port.

Shipping by air this week out of China has had hundreds of flights from Shanghai and Ningbo cancelled with Ningbo International, Shanghai Pudong and Shanghai Hongqiao all closed yesterday. Charter flights for today have been cancelled, while some freighters are resuming later today.

According to air and sea freight company Across the Ocean Shipping there is a lot of cargo stuck at Pudong, and carriers are unlikely to recover flight schedules until Wednesday. “Therefore, we expect this week’s air rates to increase greatly and, even worse, the available space will be greatly limited”

On the land side, road transport across the whole region had been affected by flooding and warned customers China-Europe rail freight was disrupted by the heavy rain in Henan. Cargo is being re-configured to other terminals in China, but we expect it to add more pressure on the service, which already has equipment shortages and limited space.

Rail, air and ocean shipping are all getting delayed again, which is something we definitely don’t need at the moment in the global supply chain commented David Aherne MD at Across the Ocean Shipping.