With three weeks left in the year, it’s virtually guaranteed that there will be no letup in 2020. Even with COVID cases surging, the next line in the sand appears to be after the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday, to be held Feb. 11-26.
Container volumes traditionally jump in January as shippers compensate for CNY closures. This pattern increases the odds that America’s box deluge won’t end until March at the earliest. And it doesn’t necessarily have to end in March.
When FreightWaves asked Nerijus Poskus, global head of ocean freight at Flexport, how long the box boom could last, he responded, “As long as people in the U.S. are stuck at home and buying things. Of course, there are some dependencies: Whether or not there’s a new round of stimulus, furloughs and layoffs and regional lockdowns will all impact the strength in demand in 2021.”