The Golden Week is a national holiday taking place each year from the 1st to the 7th of October in China. During those days, all local businesses stop their activities. This interruption triggers several effects on the main ocean freight and air freight routes, with a sharp increase in the number of shipment requests and the risk of dealing with missed loadings and delays in deliveries. Furthermore, this one-week-long holiday happens during the peak season.
In the last year, we have observed a growing escalation of the demand for transport that has made it harder to precisely identify a peak season. This is due to the surge of volumes, the general congestion of ports, and the consequent impact on air freight. As a matter of fact, the unusual conditions in which companies are operating have started a new trend which can be defined as season peak, characterizing for the constant situation of urgency in which shipments and freight operations must be managed and that adds up to the challenges of the already complex period before the Golden Week.
Is the Golden Week relevant only if you ship goods from or to China?
Not at all. The booking rush to which we assist in this period and the subsequent backlog of orders to be fulfilled in this moment of the year impact all main services both in Asia-Pacific and worldwide.
Maritime companies allot the majority of spaces for shipments departing from China, thus reducing the availability of spaces and services at other origins. There’s only one possible solution to this situation: waiting for the backlog to be worked off and organizing your shipment in advance.
Then, what should we expect?
Asia-Pacific: at a local level, ports, airports, and intermodal hubs are already facing multiple challenges. Further to new Covid-19 cases which have led to the imposition of strict containment measures, extreme climate events have caused a temporarily shut down of some of the most important port and airport terminals (last in chronological order Shanghai Pudong Airport and the Meidong Container Terminal of Ningbo). The rush preceding the Golden Week will grow the stress level to which the structures in this area are subject, causing possible delays and impacting on operations efficiency.
America: since the last months of 2020, North-America ports have been affected by significant levels of congestion. The reason lays in the upturn of shipments requests for consumer goods from China to the USA, which has led to a critical lack of spaces and equipment also on routes different from the China-United States trade lane. Chinese ports congestion and the spike in the service demand preceding Christmas can take the situation to a difficult point making the management of Europe-USA solutions harder too.
Europe: European ports too are facing the effects of Asian ports congestion, linked to the growing demand and the recent shut-down cases due to the increase in Coronavirus cases. Moreover, hubs dedicated to rail transport are preparing to receive a significant increase in volumes from China.
Booking the service in advance is always the best strategy to prevent difficulties. Our teams are at complete disposal to evaluate all the options and to find the solution that can better fit your needs.
Contact us here.
D.B. Group
