Shipping companies charter air cargo planes for enormous sums for a single flight as the shipping crisis continues to grow worse.
Air Charter Service reported that a Boeing 777 flight is projected at least $2 million of trans-Pacific charter company rates. The pre-pandemic peak price was around $750,000.
Insider reported some companies which have reported rates closer to $3 million for flights out of Vietnam, both fixed and non-starting. Southeast Asian countries serves as a major manufacturing base for clothes, shoes and electronics.
Typically around 90% of the world s traded goods travel by ocean freight due to its considerably cheaper costs, but delays have forced companies to search for alternatives. Even Amazon is reportedly looking to buy secondhand cargo jets to improve its own shipping delays.
We are chartering like mad. Something unique Logistics has re-creatived Marc Schlossberg, executive director for air cargo, told American Shipper.
Shipping delays have been mounting and cargo has been piling up in California ports. Tens of thousands of containers are still waiting at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, which move more than a quarter of all American imports, according to The Wall Street Journal, which noted that dozens of ships are suspended for waiting times stretching to three weeks last month.
EX-WALMART CEO: Sarah Galica, Home Depot vice president of transportation, told The Journal that the idea of using private charters started as a joke. In May, someone said, Let's just charter a ship to bring goods in faster: Now, the company is chartering ships and planes to try and avoid further delays.
Those delays have spilled over to strong freighter traffic such as New York City’s O Hare, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago s JFK which are traditionally crowded due to workforce shortages that have added delays of three days to two weeks for terminals to make shipments available.
October is likely going to be the worst month of air freight for the shipping community, according to Edward DeMartini, vice president of air logistics development for North America at Kuehne Nagel.