Reasons for Shipping Delays

Millions of cargo shipments move around the world every single day. Some are shipping internationally, some domestically, but they all have one thing in common: someone is waiting on the other side for that shipment to arrive. And then when it does not arrive as planned, it can create problems both for the shipper and the consignee. It is the objective of the freight forwarder to work with you to make the shipment as efficient as possible.

So what are some reasons that we can check on to find out why our shipments are delayed? The truth is that there could be many contributing factors to delayed shipments. This goes for all ocean, air and trucking shipments.

If you are shipping ocean freight, chances are good that you will have some sort of delay at some point that will be completely beyond your control and may be beyond your shipper’s control as well. It could be that the ship left late or that there was a problem en route like a huge storm, but that is not always the case. The easiest way to combat this is to plan ahead and book in advance and drop off your cargo as soon as you are allowed to gate it in. Even though your cargo is booked ahead though, it may get bumped. Shipping containers must be loaded in a specific way on a container ship in order to keep the balance. Your container may not fit in with the balance of the ship or there may have been other containers that were already bumped so they are ahead of yours. There is really nothing you can do. Even if you arrange everything ahead and have a plan, sometimes your shipment will be delayed so be sure to add some buffer days into your supply chain timeline.