Several giant container ships, full of goods to be sold during Christmas, were redirected on Tuesday (10.12.2021) to European ports after being unable to unload at a British port due to traffic jams caused by the pandemic and Britain’s exit from the European Union.
The spokesperson explained on Tuesday that “in order to ensure cargo is widely available in the UK for Black Friday and Christmas, we have begun rerouting one in three of our large vessels calling at Felixstow each week” in the east of England. for Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, according to AFP.
The saturation of the dump sidewalks, he said, is linked to a shortage of truck drivers, as the country suffers from Brexit and the pandemic, causing serious supply problems in supermarkets and gas stations.
To solve the problem, some ships unload goods at European ports such as Rotterdam (Netherlands) or Antwerp (Belgium), where they are then transported by smaller vessels bound for Felixstowe, he said.
Lars Mikael Jensen, head of the East-West Maritime Network in Maersk, argued that it was better to send them to another port than to “wait for a ship outside Felixstow for four, five, or six days to get a place at berth.”
A spokesman for the group pointed out that port congestion is widespread in the world, but this British port, through which 36 per cent of the volume of sea freight in the United Kingdom passes, “is among the 3 or 4 most affected ports in the world.”
The reason, he says, is that “empty containers are not being removed at normal speed due to a shortage of truck drivers” due to Brexit and the pandemic.
A lack of 100,000 drivers and fear of a widespread shortage at Christmas have led the British government to review its immigration policy and approve 10,500 temporary work visas.
(afp)
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