Return to 
Late Breaking News

LA-Long Beach fighting cargo jam

Tue Aug 10, 2004

By Stuart Chirls
The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE

Vessel traffic is moving but congestion continues to slow cargo handling at the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach.   The Marine Exchange of Southern California on Tuesday afternoon reported more than 60 ships berthed at the nation's busiest port complex, with approximately 20 waiting at anchor.  Normal traffic is 35-40 ships at berth, with three or four at anchor.

Ongoing shortages of longshore labor continue to drag cargo-handling operations, with vessel turnaround running 6-7 days per ship, about twice the normal time.  The higher import volume s of the peak shipping season in September and October "will only exacerbate the congestion situation we're experiencing now," Capt. Manny Aschemeyer, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, said in an e-mail report.  Representatives of trucking, shipping lines, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Marine Exchange told an Aug. 4 meeting of the Los Angeles Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association to expect the situation to get worse before it gets better.

Truckers are reporting a serious shortage of drivers, and extreme delays at terminals. One broker told the meeting in one case it took over seven hours to pick up one container.  While the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and ILWU are in the process of hiring 3,000 longshoremen, it will take several months before all are trained and deployed on the docks.

The railroads serving the Southern California gateway are struggling with their own shortages of equipment and crews, even as ocean carriers prepare to add bigger and faster ships to their fleets. Aschemeyer said the port has already seen the arrival of an 8,600-TEU vessel.