West Coast contingency plans for shippers | FreightWave's Check Call

FreightWaves Check Call

September 3, 2024

Mary O'Connell

Mary O'Connell, host of FreightWaves Check Call: "Your Port/Rail Index that just came out recently - one of the standouts from looking at it is that operations and congestion are looking to be a strong concerns as we head into the fall for retail's peak season. What is causing this concern on the West Coast?"

Paul Brashier, VP of Global Supply Chain: "When you look at international logistics, it's cyclical, and it's a long period, so a lot of decisions get made months, maybe a year in advance, and the plans are put into motion. Two things that caused a lot of chaos and pushed volumes to the West Coast. First were the Red Sea strikes, so if you wanted to get things to the United States the easiest place transpacific was to go into the US West Coast. Then you have labor concerns arising, and everybody saw this coming in Canada and the East Coast, so naturally, people are hedging against that and are going to send stuff into the West Coast. That's what's driving most of this, and it's something that will probably last as we play ourselves through Peak, which in the ocean world we're in the middle of now, it happens way before we start seeing that domestic Network. Probably by about Q4 we should be out of it on our side."

Mary O'Connell: "Unfortunately, transportation is very cyclical, and many of us are wondering, can we just go back to normal and consistent?"

Paul Brashier: "Many of us who were in the industry back in 2008 and 2009 might have said those freight conditions have rivaled the current one...but there's always going to be opportunity and change, and back then it was correcting inventories, just in time shipping.... "

The interview goes on to discuss current market conditions and Paul's insights on contingency planning for shippers and navigating supply chain disruptions.

Watch the full episode here.