Air freight bookings soar 70% this month as firms bid to bypass ports chaos

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Air freight bookings have soared by 70 per cent in the UK this month, according to a cargo group, while firms bid to bypass ports chaos and get goods into the UK in time for Christmas amid the ongoing delivery crisis. 

Air Charter Service, which sees firms hire planes to move goods, said demand had skyrocketed this month having already surged during the pandemic. 

Group cargo director Dan Morgan-Evans predicted pre-bookings for October to be around double that of the same period last year, in addition to pre-bookings in the UK increasing by 20 per cent year on year in September. 

It comes as millions of Britons were today urged to order gifts for Christmas immediately to avoid disappointment because of delays at the UK’s choked ports where containers are stacked high and ships are being diverted.

Experts warn the crisis will not be solved until ‘well into 2022’ and will lead to gaps on the shelves throughout the festive period.

The most popular toys, games consoles, smart phones, white goods as well as chocolate and even Christmas trees are predicted to be in short supply this December.

Britain’s busiest container port, Felixstowe, has become severely congested to the point Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, is diverting its big vessels away from the UK to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Containers at the Suffolk port are taking up to ten days to be put on to trucks instead of the usual three days while big ships are having to wait up to a week after arriving off the UK coast to dock and unload.

Some customers are turning to the air to solve the backlog, with pre-bookings for air freight services in October soaring by 70 per cent. 

Meanwhile Co-chairman of the Conservative Party Oliver Dowden admitted just 20 out of 300 foreign lorry drivers who have applied for temporary visas are on the roads in another blow for delivery services.

He said the number of workers from abroad Britain has been able to attract to drive trucks has been ‘relatively limited’ and said it would not solve the current crisis. 

Mr Morgan-Evans told the Guardian: ‘Having so many flights pre-booked at the beginning of the month for cargo is completely out of the ordinary.

‘It is impossible to say how many planeloads will be brought into the UK at this stage, as that partly depends on demand for aircraft elsewhere in the world.

‘It is possible there simply won’t be enough aircraft able to cope with the expected last-minute demand that has characterised [the final quarter of the year] in previous years, although we are confident that there are just about enough solutions out there.’

Shipping experts have warned the crisis is hitting Britain particularly hard.

Peter Wilson, managing director at Cory Brothers shipping agency, said problems affecting shipping and transport is a global issue but added the UK has a ‘significant pinch point around HGV drivers and the demand on them to move goods from the ports’.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘That’s a really significant issue for us here in the UK.’

Asked if it will affect Christmas, he said it has the ‘potential’ but stressed that the supply chain ‘will not fail in the UK’, adding that consumers should ‘be sensible, think ahead, plan appropriately, and order your Christmas goods and the items that you need in a timely fashion to ensure that you have them.’

Mr Wilson said there is a potential that some items may not be available nearer to Christmas, and when asked what items are most at risk of that, he said: ‘It’s a real mix.

‘We import so much into the UK by container on these shipping lines, so it’s from white goods to your Christmas toys, and we include food goods with this as well, so it could be a real mixed bag of all items.

‘But I think you know, Christmas, the toys, the goods will be the significant big selling point as we build up to Christmas and I think that’s where we’re going to get pinch points.’

Some customers are turning to the air for a way around the backlog, with air freight services rocketing this month by 70 per cent. 

Meanwhile Tory co-chairman Mr Dowden admitted just 20 out of 300 foreign lorry drivers who have applied for temporary visas are on the roads in another blow for delivery services.

He told LBC the number of workers from abroad that Britain has been able to attract to drive trucks has been ‘relatively limited’.

Asked if it was going to solve the crisis, Mr Dowden said: ‘No it’s not, and that’s why it is just one of a range of measures we are taking, because of course we can’t just do what we have always done, which is when we have a shortage get more foreign labour in.

‘We need to improve the skills in our country, and we need to get more people training to be HGV drivers. That’s why we are streamlining the recruitment process.’

Mr Dowden said there are two different elements to recruiting lorry drivers successfully – applications for visas from foreign drivers, and the streamlining of the testing process which happens for HGV drivers already in this country.

He told Mr Ferrari: ‘Over the longer term we need to get more people driving HGVs. That’s why we are investing more and streamlining that process, in fact it’s why we have got military testers also helping us with this. 

‘The best way to solve this is getting people in this country to train as HGV drivers.’ Mr Ferrari asked the minister: ‘I’m sorry, I must have misheard you.

‘I thought you said this process had been streamlined. I don’t see 20 out of 300 as particularly streamlined chairman?’ He pushed the minister on whether or not he was pleased with a roughly 7 per cent success rate. 

Mr Dowden replied: ‘That number is just a reflection of the number of applicants who have been processed and have actually got their visa.’ ‘So we have 300 on the road, I see…’ Mr Ferrari replied.

But Mr Dowden clarified: ‘No, we have 300 who have applied for these visas. I believe the number is just over 20 who have actually received them and are on the road. I expect this number to increase over time.’

Mr Ferrari branded the success rate ‘hopeless’, adding: ‘You’d get booted out of school for that, minister!’

The heads of several import firms are growing concerned as containers packed with food, furniture and electronics are backing up at Britain’s busiest freight port predominantly due to the UK’s dearth of drivers.

However, the disruption is not limited to Felixstowe, with sources pointing to a bottleneck at distribution centres in the Midlands causing problems as well.

The lack of drivers to move containers, along with a surge in imports and restrictions at ports due to Covid has created a ‘perfect storm’, according to the Times.

Maersk boss Lars Mikael Jensen says its largest ships are being diverted from Felixstowe to Rotterdam because they were waiting for up to a week off the port.  

He has warned that retailers may need to prioritise what they ship to Britain in the coming months, with 10 to 15 large ships from Asia arriving in the UK every week. He added that he felt it would be ‘well into 2022’ before the situation began to resolve itself. 

He said: ‘We’ve taken those measures because we saw, because of the big ships, there is a limit to how many berths they can call in Felixstowe, and because its slower, it took longer to handle every ship. Instead of wasting time waiting, we progressed to the next stop, and arranged that the boxes are relayed from that port rather than wait for a week and then discharge.’

Adam Searle, of CP Transport, which operates 45 lorries out of Felixstowe, said the situation was a ‘nightmare’.  He told the Telegraph: ‘My guys in the office are pulling their hair out every single day and are working extended hours just to try and deliver what our customers need. I’m scared for the final rush to Christmas.’

Pictures from Felixstowe yesterday showed how it was rammed with containers piled up over the gigantic dockside, as the British International Freight Association said it understood average ‘dwell times’ for cargo at the port have nearly doubled in the last two weeks, from five to 9.7 days.

The backlog is affecting major retailers including IKEA and major food companies including Nestle, the world’s largest food producer of coffee, baby food and chocolate, as well as tens of thousands of smaller UK businesses waiting for orders from all over the world.

Some cargo ships are now being sent to European ports with containers moved into the UK via Dover or on smaller ships to less busy ports such as Hull and Liverpool because it is now quicker to avoid Felixstowe.

Inside those containers are tens of thousands of tonnes of goods destined for shops, supermarkets and households for the busy festive period. Britons are already buying their turkeys, gammons and Christmas puddings due to shortage fears.

Britain’s labour crisis is also being blamed for the logjam with one logistics company whistleblower telling ITV News anonymously: ‘I’m fed up with this. Year on year this port never has enough staff to cope with high demand.

‘Now we’re hitting another peak period and all that people are talking about again is shutdowns and gridlock. These volumes were forecast, there have been many meetings about the run up to Christmas. Why are we on this position?’

There are empty shelves in every major supermarket in the country due to shortages with store managers and staff also telling MailOnline that deliveries are regularly now ‘just not turning up’ due to a lack of drivers.

One logistics industry source told MailOnline there had been much discussion that the peak season is going to be tough and some suspect the shipping lines will be making plans to spread the load between Felixstowe, Liverpool, Southampton and London Gateway.

They added that decision to ‘drop a port call is nothing new’, and that there was anecdotal evidence that the dwell times at other major container ports is increasing.

The source said: ‘The increased pressure on inland depots and UK terminals in general is down to a number of factors including the ongoing HGV driver issue, equipment shortage, post Brexit stockpiling and an increase in domestic spending due to a lack of foreign travel, as well as other matters.’

It came as Boris Johnson sealed a deal to reverse the shortage of CO2 for use in beer and food production but shoppers will be paying more for staples almost immediately after the US company producing 60% of the UK’s supply allowed to up its prices from £200 to £1,000 per ton.

The price of the gas, which is used to carbonate drinks, preserve food and stun animals for slaughter, is expected to rise five times after the country’s biggest manufacturer threatened to shut its UK factories.

The shortage of C02 is part of a storm of crises the Government is accused of failing to get a grip on, including a shortage of fuel and 100,000 HGV drivers, a lack of food processing workers and butchers due to the pandemic and Brexit, gaps in the global supply chain and the highest rise in energy prices for decades hitting households and businesses.

The PM has brought in the former boss of Tesco, Sir Dave Lewis, to unblock Britain’s choked supply chains.

Experts have warned that delays at Felixstowe are bound to cause more problems with the flow of goods into the UK, with just ten weeks to go until Christmas. 

The near-ten day wait for containers to clear is nearly double the average for 2020. It comes despite the port – which handles 40 per cent of Britain’s container imports – only dealing with similar import volumes to 2019 with Brexit and the pandemic causing problems.  

Felixstowe is the route into Britain for much almost half of all of the UK’s imports, especially containers carrying goods from Asia via the Suez Canal. In the past year problems caused by the pandemic led to the delay of goods such as Apple AirPods and Sony PS5s as well as a plethora of items ordered from China by UK businesses. 

The shortage of lorry drivers means it is having more containers arrive than are being collected, creating a backlog affecting major retailers including IKEA and major food companies including Nestle, the world’s largest food producer of coffee, baby food and chocolate. 

An IKEA spokesman said: ‘Like many retailers, we are experiencing ongoing challenges with our supply chains.

‘As a result, we are experiencing low availability in some of our ranges. With Felixstowe nearing capacity, we have faced some challenges in returning containers to the port.’ 

Alex Veitch, of Logistics UK, said: ‘The current issues being experienced at Felixstowe port are partly due to the HGV driver shortage.’

Robert Keen, director general of The British International Freight Association, said: ‘BIFA has anecdotal evidence that the import dwell time for containers at some of UK’s main gateways for container shipping services has gone up from 5 to 9.7days over the past two weeks, but members are resigned to this being just part and parcel of the deep sea shipping world these days.’

A Port of Felixstowe spokesman said: ‘The pre-Christmas peak, combined with haulage shortages, congested inland terminals, poor vessel schedule reliability and the pandemic, has resulted in a build-up of containers at the port. The vast majority of import containers are cleared for collection within minutes of arriving.’

The backlog at Felixstowe comes as the spectre of bare shelves continued to haunt supermarkets.

Low stocks were in evidence at supermarkets including a Tesco in Chester, an Asda store in South East London and a Waitrose in Surrey.

Workers at the supermarkets said deliveries had ‘just not turned up’.

Meanwhile, there were warnings of price rises affecting staple items including baked beans and coffee.  

Kraft Heinz CEO Miguel Patricio said yesterday the firm is ‘raising prices, where necessary’, blaming a lack of truck drivers in the UK and labour shortages and an increase in logistics costs in the US.

He added: ‘If costs keep going up we’re going to struggle. We will simply have to increase the price for customers.’

The price of Arabica coffee has jumped almost 73 per cent in the past year to levels not seen since 2014 after 20 per cent of coffee plants in Brazil – the world’s biggest bean exporter – were killed by drought and severe frost in the past year.

In Colombia, the third largest coffee-producing country in the world, farmers have refused to deliver bags of beans unless they receive higher prices.

Shoppers face higher supermarket prices as part of a deal to protect vital supplies of carbon dioxide.

The price of the gas, which is used to carbonate drinks, preserve food and stun animals for slaughter, is expected to rise fivefold after the Britain’s biggest manufacturer threatened to shut its factories.

Carbon dioxide is also used in surgical operations in hospitals, and as a coolant for nuclear power stations.

Ministers stepped in with a subsidy worth tens of millions to keep the supply going for three weeks and allow space for CF Fertiliser, which makes three-fifths of the UK’s supply, to negotiate with its customers.

It has now agreed higher prices that will guarantee supply until at least January.

But drinks companies and food producers may be forced to pass on the huge cost increase, thought to be from £200 to £1,000 per ton, to their consumers.

Industry bosses warned yesterday that three in five retailers expect to increase prices before Christmas in the face of rising costs for energy, ingredients and wages.

It comes after last month’s warning from Tesco chairman John Allan that food inflation could hit 5 per cent this year after a long period of falling prices.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the new deal between CF Fertiliser and its customers – industrial gas companies – was a ‘more sustainable solution’. He added: ‘Critical industries can have confidence in their supplies of CO2 over the coming months without further taxpayer support.’

The deal reflected ‘the vital importance of this material to everything from our nuclear industry to hospitals to the food and beverage industry’.

Last week Mr Kwarteng temporarily exempted parts of the CO2 industry from competition law so the deal could go through. Previously, ministers had warned that companies would have to accept a large rise in CO2 rates, with a possible fivefold increase.

Now CO2 customers will pay CF Fertilisers a set price until January, which will let the company continue to operate while global gas prices remain high. But with energy bills for its factories expected to rise further still, there is no guarantee that the firm can keep going beyond that date.

And a CF spokesman said the company expected the UK government and industrial gas customers to develop ‘robust alternative sources of CO2 as part of a long-term solution for meeting demand’.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said: ‘The Government has taken decisive action in these exceptional circumstances to allow a deal to be reached which will continue the supply of CO2.’

Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: ‘We welcome news of this arrangement, which provides some certainty of supply over the next few months. Although CO2 is a only a small percentage of total cost for most soft drinks producers, the significantly higher prices for supply only add to the economic pressures already facing manufacturers, including the shortage of HGV drivers.’

Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, added: ‘We welcome a deal to ensure that CO2 supplies are secure until after Christmas.

‘However, this is yet another example of cost pressures in the supply chain, along with rising transport costs, higher energy and commodity prices, and ongoing labour shortages.’