Free Time at Destination
04-April-2022
Dear Valued Customers,
We would like to remind all importers & traders to be mindful of the free time applied to their shipments.
For CFR bookings, it may be easy to leave seeking additional free time with suppliers however a joint push needs to be made to achieve as much free time as possible. If a shipper, sending cargo under CFR terms, does not already have a contract in place then they will seek spot rates for the shipment. Typically, the shipper will accept whatever free time the carrier has provided, which is not enough in the case of spot bookings and cheaper rates
The issues, that were mainly isolated to Australia’s East Coast, have now made their way to Fremantle where the congestion is already at critical, and growing. Many providers are in a position where they simply do not have the space to take on any additional work and this overflow will affect other transport providers soon enough. Again, to minimise the impact, please ask for as much detention free time as you can.
We ask that importers & traders keep in regular contact with their clients, and receivers, to keep all parties updated on these industry challenges. Receivers are seeing huge delays getting cargo into their stores and, while clients & receivers would already be aware of underlying issues, the full extent may not be completely understood or appreciated.
Through conversations with traders, we understand that it is especially complicated to seek any contributions to storage, detention, or other issues from their clients since orders and transactions take place months in advance. Nevertheless, now is the time to be having those difficult conversations and possibly adding further terms and conditions to sales contracts or orders.
We are in unprecedented times, experiencing unprecedented problems so I would like to take this moment to remind all of us of the ‘human factor’ present. This is taking its toll on the mental and physical health of all industry employees, and I hope we can all appreciate that when we are dealing with one another during these hard times. What we are going through now affects all stakeholders; we are all in this together. There will not be any one person or company involved in international trade & logistics who has not been impacted in one way or another.
The focus, for all stakeholders, is to keep cargo moving to our customers, keep customers as informed as possible and provide understanding of the market conditions in each port that will ultimately affect price. As we touched on earlier, it is difficult to make any adjustments for cargo that was ordered months ago but these conversations should be had and hopefully agreements can be made.
As always, SILA Global & our partners will do everything within our control to minimise the negative impacts and we will endeavour to keep our clients informed.
In the meantime, should you have any concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your SILA Sales representative.
Simon Pepper
Managing Director
SILA Global Pty Ltd