News & Insights

The HGV driver crisis, which has been gathering pace over the last two decades, has been largely hidden due, in no small part, to effective transport management by the freight forwarding community. But the situation has been exacerbated by Brexit and tax changes which encouraged 20 thousand Europ... Read more

The HGV driver shortage is hitting crisis level in the UK (and around the world) as demand for haulage services continues to increase and, while a potential strike within the industry has been averted, the threat of driver strike action continues at Tesco and Hanson, raising the possibility of fu... Read more

The core problems impacting containerised shipping - the slow circulation of ships and containers, port disruption and the HGV crisis - are clearly worsening, as they diminish available capacity supply and continue to drive spot rates to record levels on pretty much every lane and every combinati... Read more

Industry data released today shows that international demand for air cargo capacity versus a shortfall in supply pushed average global air cargo rates up 112% beyond their pre-COVID level, as lockdown in Vietnam and the closure of cargo handling terminals at Shanghai highlighted the fragility of ... Read more

Peak Season for air cargo traditionally arrives in the latter half of September. It’s predictable although always a pain to negotiate and ensure that product, raw materials and components are available for the busy back end of the year, including the traditional retail festive season. This y... Read more

Despite all the hype, Maersk has calculated that global container shipping demand is only up 2.7%, leading some analysts to assert that there is no COVID-era surge in global cargo demand, but there is a massive spike in supply chain disruption, which is the primary catalyst for driving rates... Read more

Container imports at the US’ ten largest ports increased 14.3% year-over-year in July and ocean freight supply chains, now in their second year of extreme dislocation, are threatened by shipping lines suspension of merchant haulage. The complete erosion of sailing schedule reliability, ships... Read more

The circulation of container equipment and vessel schedule reliability continues to be a struggle, with our own analysis confirming that transit times from key origins increased by an average of 14 days and while some improvements have been made, we expect these to be undermined by the Yantian an... Read more

Metro continues to actively support the development and adoption of emerging technology, across the shipping industry, by participating in the successful testing of new e-FIATA Bill of Lading (eFBL) standard, with FIATA , the trade association for 40,000 freight forwarding and logistics firms in ... Read more

Just two weeks since the Ningbo-Zhoushan containers terminal closed after a worker tested positive for COVID-19 and container port congestion has spread across China and many other regions. Data from consultancy eeSea highlights how global container port congestion has grown over the past... Read more

Ningbo Meidong Container Terminal will open tomorrow, having suspended all operations early last Wednesday morning after a port worker tested positive for COVID-19. Local sources now advise that the Meishan Island container terminal will restart operations from 18th August. Despite the Ningbo ... Read more

Focus Friday is our team’s day to take a deep breath and concentrate - free from internal distractions to focus further on you – our invaluable customers! We all get frustrated when we cannot clear the big jobs because little tasks, interruptions, calls and meetings suck up all our time, a... Read more