Our industry body has written to major shipping lines to point out that the Easter Holiday break severely restricts our ability to return empty containers to Empty Container Parks (ECPs), which will incur demurrage fees that have to be passed on to the importer.
Over the 11-day period between 19 and 28 April, transport operators only have 3 days available to dehire empty containers, taking into account the fact that most ECPs will be shut on the public holidays and weekends during this period.
The memo has gone out to eight of the main container lines: OOCL; COSCO; ANL /CGM; Hamburg Sud; Maersk; MSC; Evergreen; One Network.
At time of writing, according to industry representative CBFCA Australia, only Maersk has responded saying they will offer extended import and export demurrage & detention freetime during public holidays.
At Colless Young we always put our clients’ interest first and will do our best to minimize any additional costs incurred over the Easter period.
