Some shoe and clothing companies
The bottleneck blamed on a surge of imports, shortage of truck trailers, and bigger ships hauling more cargo has created a seven- to 10-day delay for retailers anxious to stock shelves for the holiday season.
“This is really a perfect storm,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka told the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/1FNkssF ) in a story Saturday.
Retailers are rerouting goods to other ports, and some shoe and clothing companies have begun transporting products by air, said Nate Herman, vice-president of international trade at the American Apparel & Footwear Assn.
“The delays are increasing, they are not getting better,” he said.
The problem is blamed on a variety of factors:
Imports increased more than 10 per cent last month at both ports compared to a year ago.
A shortage of truck trailers or truck drivers has left cargo stuck on the docks.
Terminals built when ships were a third the size of today’s cargo behemoths can’t unload the ships fast enough.
Other ports are experiencing some of the same problems, but the situation is worse in Southern California at the nation’s busiest port complex, which handles 40 percent of U.S. imports. There were seven ships anchored offshore on Friday.