Forget faster shipping services and press container lines for better reliability, is the advice from Drewry to shippers prepared to pay a premium for expedited options.
In its Container Insight Weekly, the analyst said Robert Gora, Siemens vice president, global category management logistics, had called on carriers to offer faster services between Asia and Europe and said companies such as his were willing to pay for it. He said it currently took about 40 days door-to-door to ship from Shanghai to Germany, compared with 10 days for the much more expensive air freight option, and 20 to 25 days by rail.
Gora made the call in a keynote at the Global Liner Shipping Conference in Hamburg last week. Several other mega shippers have made similar suggestions, but container lines say when presented with expedited services, shippers are reluctant to pay up.