To Our Valued Customers:

Within the last week, several carriers have started to announce significant new fees & surcharges to be added to freight costs effective this August.
In addition, both rail and ocean carriers have also announced some service interruptions that are already impacting bookings for inland destinations, and resulting in more challenges for capacity and pricing.

Both the additional fees and service interruptions are coming as the domestic intermodal system is being stretched near to its breaking point, and both the ports and rail yards struggle to keep up with the container traffic, often resulting in significant scheduling delays and storage charges burdening importers.

Below is a link to one notice among others from major carriers for both the "intermodal surcharge" and the "port congestion surcharge" that will become effective this August.
Hapag Lloyd Announces VAD Surcharge

With these announcements made in the last week, others are expected to follow in announcing port congestion fees reaching up to $5,000 per container, and intermodal surcharges reaching up to $1,000 per container—in addition to the anticipated general rate increases at the beginning and middle of each month.

We realize this may mean some difficult conversations both internally and potentially with your customers, so we have also included a link below that contains some recent articles and announcements relating to these matters for your reference, including "Forwarders warn of growing trans-Pacific pricing chaos" which helps to describe the current challenges from the added fees due to lack of capacity.
Link to Articles

Our goal is to help provide as much transparency into the market as we can to help you make the best decisions for your company. We will continue to work to provide the latest information as any updates develop.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your Shippabo Account Manager for more information.

Thank you!
Shippabo