Los Angeles/Long Beach queue hits record 105 ships, 146 across US coasts (January 2022)

Prime Freight’s summary of a January 2022 report by FreightWaves. Read the original for the full story.

In January 2022 the queue of container ships waiting for berths at Los Angeles and Long Beach hit another record of 105 vessels, even though public concern about supply chains had faded after the holidays.

FreightWaves noted that US holiday sales had held up, about 11% above 2019, and that online searches for terms such as port congestion had peaked in October before falling back. Offshore, the problem kept growing. Most ships waiting for LA/LB berths now held outside a new air-quality zone stretching 150 miles out to sea, many of them off Baja California.

Their combined capacity was about 816,000 TEU, more than the two ports imported in all of November, and there were more than three times as many ships waiting as a year earlier. Queues were also building at Oakland, Seattle/Tacoma, Houston, Charleston, Virginia and New York/New Jersey, bringing the total off all three US coasts to about 146 ships. Strong imports before Lunar New Year and fears of omicron-related labour shortages at terminals added to the pressure.

What it meant for shippers

A record ship queue means cargo spends far longer on the water than the published transit time suggests. Planning lead times around actual queue data rather than carrier schedules was the safer approach for spring inventory.