Forwarder says it has taken the unusual step to provide its customers with guaranteed space ‘in an ultra-tight sea freight market from China to Europe’.
Global supply chain operator Geodis has begun chartering its own dedicated Asia-Europe containerships to provide its customers ex-Asia with “guaranteed space in an ultra-tight sea freight market from China to Europe”.
The first 1,000 TEU vessel, operated exclusively for Geodis, is scheduled to arrive in Hamburg on 28 February and is carrying a total of 435 forty-foot containers “for customers who have found it increasingly difficult to secure space with regular carriers at a viable rate”, the company said.
A second vessel left Shanghai on 8 February, and depending on demand, Geodis said it will plan additional sailings over the coming weeks.
Although there have been recent reports of other freight forwarding and logistics companies chartering feeder capacity in Asia and Europe to help meet regional capacity shortfalls, freight forwarders chartering full intercontinental vessel capacity is uncommon in normal times.
Matthias Hansen, Senior Vice President Global Ocean Freight for Geodis, commented: “We understand the current market challenges resulting from unprecedented customer demand and the limitations of ocean carrier capacity and sailings from China and other parts of Asia. We are working hard to find solutions for our customers – hence, this exclusive vessel charter to supplement fixed long-term agreements we have with core carriers.
“We strive to deliver certainty to our customers amid the unstable market.”
Unforeseen spikes in demand
Onno Boots, Geodis’ Regional President and CEO for Asia Pacific, noted: “These market forces have created variable and unforeseen spikes in demand for Asian goods. Our primary aim is to offer multi-modal solutions to our existing customers to enable them to ship on time and in a reasonably economic manner.
“As an adaptable and innovative service provider, Geodis is permanently looking for alternatives including rail, ocean and air products that fulfil this aim for shippers on the increasingly volatile Far East West Bound (FEWB) trade lane.”
Boots told Lloyd’s Loading List that chartering the company’s own controlled ocean vessel was helping “to overcome the capacity constraints that have arisen in the past couple of months. Again, we have repeated the same for February with our own chartered vessel departing SHA on the 8 Feb. Both have seen a very swift take up of the available added capacity, in addition to our standard sailings.”
Asia-Europe rail demand surge
He continued: “We’ve also seen a surge in volume again in our Rail product, partly driven by conversion from Ocean Freight and which has consistently doubled in turnover during the last four years, and I expect 2021 to be no different.”
He highlighted that Geodis also now operates its own weekly air freight charter schedules, with European roundtrips to and from Shanghai and Hong Kong, in addition to its weekly Guadalajara (GDL) rotations ex-Hong Kong “which have recently been extended with an additional service ex SHA. As a result, we have seen these flights fully booked in addition to our regular BSA commitments.”
Boots concluded: “We will continue to expand our own controlled network as and where customer or market demands require in all products.”
Geodis operates freight forwarding and logistics services via a direct presence in 67 countries, and a global network spanning 120 countries, a over 41,000 employees globally generating €8.2 billion in annual sales.
Source: lloyd´s
