Shipping delays will continue into next year, Maersk warns
The supply chain crisis will extend into next year, Maersk has warned today while the the world’s largest container shipping group sees profits rise.
A shortfall in the number of truck drivers, particularly in Britain and the US, has stopped hundreds of container vessels from being able to deliver goods around the world, the group said.
“The whole system,” chief executive Soren Skou told Reuters reporters, “has become one gigantic bottleneck.”
“A too large proportion of our capacity is tied up lying waiting outside the ports,” Skou said, referring to 300 container vessels.
Record freight prices, pushed by the supply chain crisis, have driven Maersk’s strong third quarter results.
Maersk, which handles 20 per feet of global container shipping, said it had added capacity to manage the soaring demands but that this would still not be enough to balance out the pressures of congestion at ports.