The congestion in California continues to challenge the major US ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, as demand surges and retailers pile up stock ahead of the holiday season.
According to Container xChange’s CAx (container availability index) data, there is a 60% spike in the inbound outbound ratio at the ports of the US West Coast, surpassing the pre-pandemic levels.
This is indicating that “there is excessive stress on the ports, and therefore indicating further congestion is expected in the coming months as we approach the holiday season in the latter part of the year,” said Dr. Johannes Schlingmeier, Co-founder and CEO of Container xChange.
The all-time high in cargo congestion at the US West Coast ports is a result of the global supply chain disruption and its domino effect, according to Christian Roeloffs, co-founder and CEO of Container xChange, who noted, “the ever-higher imports owing to higher demand, grappling with the infrastructural and human resources struggles are further adding to the stratospheric congestion which is ultimately leading to further delay in vessel arrival.”
Roeloffs believes that it also indicates that in the coming months, which are the most crucial months for the industry, there will be higher demurrage and detention charges, higher spot rates and surcharges and intermodal delays before it finally settles.”
The following graph shows the year-on-year trend of the inbound vs outbound containers over the past three years:
There is an average increase of 60% in the CAx values during the month of August 2021 as compared to the same time period in 2020, according to Container xChange report. This shows the inbound containers at the LA port have increased 60% from the last year during the same time last year.
CAx for the port of Los Angeles is at 0.88 and 0.90 for 20DC and 40DC respectively, where 0.50 is the balance of inbound and outbound containers and anything greater than 0.50 represents a surplus of containers at a port and vice versa. This is the highest CAx at the ports observed over the past 3 years.
Index values appended below for the port of Los Angeles
| Container type | Weeks | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| 20DC | Week 35 | 0.80 | 0.55 | 0.88 |
| 40DC | Week 35 | 0.78 | 0.50 | 0.90 |
The data corroborates well to the coming Christmas season congestion chaos, according to Container xChange’s experts, who expect delays in shipments further beyond the holiday season as “the industry grapples with the bottlenecks of shipping logistics and container availability.”
