As typhoons continue to impact major ports across East Asia, shippers are navigating growing ocean freight congestion, capacity constraints, and supply chain delays. In this week's episode, we explore the ocean freight trends shaping global trade, including the effects of port closures, vessel backlogs, and disrupted shipping networks.

Joining the conversation is Adam Kord, Senior Vice President of Global Ocean, who discusses the current state of ocean freight markets, the long-term effects of port congestion on global capacity, and the importance of supply chain flexibility, contingency planning, and alternative routing strategies in today's market.

  • 18 min

Current Position | Weekly Briefing August 26th - September 1st

The Expeditors Podcast

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You're listening to Current Position, a weekly briefing from Expeditors mapping the shifts across trade compliance, regulatory changes, and global supply chains, plus some market insights from our Senior Vice President of Global Ocean, Adam Kord.

I'm Chris Parker, and here's the latest from Wednesday, August 26th to Tuesday, September 1st. 

Global Customs & Trade Market

U.S. Customs recently updated direction to importers and brokers on how to sequence multiple HTS on entries. A CBP message clarified the correct line ordering for when a single entry includes multiple classifications. This has become particularly important for entries with layered Section 232, Section 301 and reciprocal tariffs as these increase the risk of incorrectly applied duties.  

Effective Sept. 10, 2026, New Zealand will implement amendments to its Customs and Excise regulations. Officials say the effort aims to modernize recordkeeping requirements, align regulations with the Customs and Excise Act 2018 and streamline excise administration. The amendments will also update provisions related to free trade agreements with China and Hong Kong. 

Global Ocean Market

Reports show ships sitting at anchor for up to 10 days outside of the ports of Shanghai and Ningbo. North Asia ports have suffered from severe congestion following several typhoons that have recently hit the area. According to Linerlytica, there are more than 2.5 million ships still waiting for berths at ports in the region, which accounts for almost 55% of global congestion.  

Port congestion remains a significant issue for Europe as well as around 1.7 million TEU tied up. Sea-Intelligence data shows yard utilization in Rotterdam and Antwerp has also consistently topped 90% given congestion in those ports. Heat-related gate closures and a reefer surge ahead of new EU meat-import rules have compounded delays and prompted carriers to skip calls and add blank sailings.  

Container freight rates hit a two-year high with global rates more than doubling in Q2. Rates hit their highest since 2024, as shippers pulled forward demand ahead of U.S. tariff changes and persistent disruption in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz. Some carriers, including Cosco, are resuming Red Sea sailings to keep vessels in rotation, though a U.S.–China truce may not be extended past October, which could create further risk.

Global Air Market

China–Europe air cargo volumes have begun to stabilize after weeks of decline following the EU de minimis change. Air tonnage from China and Hong Kong to Europe showed a little bit more than 1% in week 34, which was the first increase since early this summer. Overall tonnage is still down 33% year-on-year for those lanes. Global worldwide tonnage, meanwhile, increased more than 2% week-over-week. This was helped by a significant rebound of freight from Japan after the Obon holiday and recent storms.

Freighter air shipments that once moved via Mumbai (BOM) into India, will soon be moving to a new air destination. Shippers moving goods into that area will need to take a few steps to ensure no delays occur because of this market shift. Shippers should confirm with their customs brokers, if not Expeditors, that they are prepared to clear via NMI and not BOM as they would have in the past. This comes at a time when capacity in and out of India has been stretched.

Airspace in and out of the Middle East remains a challenge. While airspace has opened either fully or partially to most major ports, there remains challenges. Kuwait (KWI) airspace, for example, is restricted. Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways have resumed flight operations into the region, but not at full capacity. Shippers should continue to expect delays for all cargo movement to the Middle East as the situation can change rapidly. 

Global Ground Transport Market

Transportation capacity in the United States dwindled further in August, but at the slowest rate recorded in six months. Many supply chain professionals agree transportation pricing has continued to surge. The Logistics Managers’ Index last month signaled further tightening in capacity, returning a reading of 40. That was 11.6 percentage points slower than July’s contraction rate, which was the second-fastest recorded in the 10-year history of the dataset.  

A wave of September regulatory changes will reshape compliance for hauliers across Europe. From Sept. 1, Slovakia will begin treating overloading of trucks of 10% or more as a serious offence, it will raise top speeding fines to €1,300 and shorten its Sunday/holiday lorry ban. The Netherlands has temporarily cut heavy vehicle tolls, while Norway’s Digitoll pre-arrival cargo reporting system becomes mandatory Sept.15. Carriers should update routing, weight-compliance and pre-border documentation procedures to meet these new requirements. 

Up next, Senior Vice President of Global Ocean, Adam Kord.

The following discussion could include forward-looking statements. Of course, actual results may differ materially because of various risks and uncertainties. We're not obligated to update these statements, and we rarely do so. Instead, we refer you to our most recent SEC filings for more information about the risk factors that could affect our future results.

Chris Parker: Adam Kord, welcome once again. What is on your mind this week?

Adam Kord: Well, hello, Chris. Always good to be talking with you.

And on my mind this week are storms. Not storms like, uh, tornadoes that I was used to as a kid growing up in the Midwest of the US, but top of my mind this week and for the past couple months have been typhoons. And the havoc typhoons have been raging across most global supply chains, especially if your supply chain interacts in some way or fashion with East Asia.

So, uh, there's been a very, very busy typhoon season.

So I'll just start out with, you know, a, a question I get. "So specifically, what is a typhoon?"

We hear it all the time. A typhoon is just a giant rotating storm with high speed winds and heavy rains that form over warm ocean waters. So a typhoon is really the same thing as a hurricane or a cyclone, just gets named different based off of where it's formed. So as an example, uh, a hurricane is just a giant swirling storm that forms over the North Atlantic or the Northwest Pacific. Mm-hmm. And so typically that's gonna impact the US, the Caribbean, or Mexico.

Whereas a cyclone forms over the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean, and that typically impacts Australia, India, or Africa, or in this case, typhoons, which are formed over the Northwest Pacific Ocean. And impact the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, or what's really been impacted is China and as I mentioned, there has been a very, very busy typhoon season.

So yeah, to put it in perspective, just if we look at July and August of this year, there's been six significant typhoons- that have impacted East Asia. Compared to in 2025, there were three. And so it's, it's doubled in July and August, and three of those typhoons that happened in July and August, three of those shut down operations in Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao, and a lot of those terminals.

So, um, yeah, it started with Bavi. Fun fact, the name Bavi, you might say, "Well, where does that come from?" There's 14 member nations of the typhoon naming committee, and they all submit 10 names in, and then they, uh, they just rotate. Bavi happens to be named after it was submitted by Vietnam, and it's named after a, uh, historic mountain range. But that, uh, historic typhoon led this off and shut down operations in, uh, Ningbo and Shanghai for quite some time.

And then Typhoon Dolphin came around and did the same, and then, uh, this past weekend, Typhoon Saudel. It didn't necessarily cause as much damage or have as big an impact, but it did cause both Shanghai and Ningbo to, to shut down again.

Chris Parker: What, what are the conditions that require a shutdown? I mean, I imagine there's s- gonna be some thresholds here, right? Where they say, "Hey, we can still move ships through. We can still, uh, receive." But has that threshold changed over the years as these become more and more common? Like, we're always gonna have typhoon season, but you're not saying it's doubled, right? So what would be like

Adam Kord: Yeah, well, I'll tell you that, uh, you know, I'm learning more and more about typhoons than I ever thought but-

Chris Parker: You're an amateur meteorologist now. Look at you.

Adam Kord: I'm an amateur meteorologist. That's right.

So typhoons actually fall into one through five categories depending on wind speed. And the three that I mentioned that have caused significant problems, Bavi, Dolphin, and Saudel, were all category fours. Meaning that they had, the speeds of the winds were in the 135 mile an hour range. So what this does is, the reason why the terminals are shutting down is for a host of reasons.

The cranes, with any high winds, you can't have a crane which are pulling containers off this, so it comes back to safety. You're gonna have the water levels come up and just stuff blowing around, so it's all in the name of, of safety. Of course, yeah. In many cases, the terminals are just cleared of, of any, any people working. Yeah, so that's the main one. But it has caused quite a few, um, delays.

You know, on these past podcasts, you know, we're always talking about supply and demand, and the reason why rates go up. Well, the reasons why rates go up is because demand exceeds available capacity. And what's going on right now in East Asia is that's absolutely the case. It's not that there's a big rush on demand, but there is a ton of vessels that are waiting to berth.

So to put it in perspective, as we record this podcast, there's 139 ships waiting to be unloaded outside of Shanghai, 77 waiting to be unloaded or loaded outside of Ningbo, and 30 in Qingdao waiting to be loaded or unloaded. That's a heck of a lot of capacity. And to put it into perspective, there was one typhoon in '25 that shut down operations in Shanghai.

That was Typhoon Co-May. And when that happens, there was only about 15 ships waiting to be unloaded. So these have just compounded one after another after another. And where there were two to three days of delays last July with Co-May, there's vessels that are sitting eight, nine, 10 days, some as long as two weeks. And when that capacity's not moving, well, it's being pulled from the market. So what is also another really interesting fact is a lot of us think that the most chaotic times in supply chain that we've ever worked in or managed through was during the pandemic.

Well, during the pandemic, we knew there was congestion all over off pretty much every, every port throughout the globe because there was just so much demand and things going on. Well, back during the, the pandemic, there was about 4 million TEUs of capacity that was being held up at, at the peak waiting to be unloaded. As it stands today, there's 4.3 million TEUs or 4.3 million container positions that are waiting to be unloaded. That's about 13% of container capacity globally that's halted, and most of that is in East Asian ports. So it's a big problem.

Chris Parker: Right. Right. We've exceeded pandemic levels of, of, uh, containers being held up.

Adam Kord: Yeah, and that is why we're seeing rates, you know, particularly export rates from Asia to all areas of the world, very high. But as most of us know, ships move in loops, so those vessels that are being held up in Asia are not making it to Latin America. They're not making it to Europe. They're not making it to the US East and West Coast, and that's gonna be a cascading effect. And typhoon season isn't over, right?

We have a few months left. So let's just hopeful that, you know, um, the storms are done and nothing else sprouts up. But even if the weather is clear for the next few months, it's gonna take some time to alleviate this congestion and get the vessels back on track. And while they're not on track right now, what does this lead to? Blank sailings. You'll have some of these vessels that are even gonna wait.

I'd mentioned vessels waiting for 10 days to be unloaded or to pick up cargo in Shanghai or Ningbo or Qingdao. Well, that's a 10-day delay at minimum that that vessel's gonna be late going into Rotterdam- or to Chennai or to New Jersey in the US. So it's just gonna be a cascading effect, which is going to take some time to, to unwind.

Chris Parker: The blank sailings, remind me again, um, explain to me what a blank sailing is and how that helps for a situation like this. I know that you got ships going around on their loops, right? They'll pass over ports, right? If the, if that capacity, if there's too much capacity, right?

Adam Kord: Yeah. In the, in the simplest sense, let's just say that you are a vessel operator, and right now you're one of those vessel operators that are hanging out outside of Yangshan or Waigaoqiao in Shanghai waiting to be unloaded. And you're on day seven, and you're just waiting and waiting and waiting. And you know that after you depart from Shanghai, you're gonna go to Busan, Korea, and then you're gonna hit Taipei, and then you're gonna go to Los Angeles, and maybe make a couple stops along the way.

Well, what you might just do is, "You know what? I've been waiting seven days. This doesn't make sense. I'm so far off schedule. I'm just not gonna stop in Shanghai." Yeah. "I'm just gonna start going again," and I skip that. Well, when you do that, what it does is it removes that capacity from that Shanghai market.

Everybody that's expecting to load onto that vessel or that cargo that was going to get unloaded off that vessel now needs to be displaced somewhere else, and it doesn't pick that up. So that causes, as we say, a whirl pool where cargo build on the docks or in the nearby warehouses, right?

And it means that when that next vessel comes through, which is going to do the same rotation, it has to make room for that much more cargo, or it just cascades to the next vessel, to the next vessel, to the next vessel. So in a very soft market, the carriers will blank sail as a way to remove capacity. But in a market like we're seeing today, they'll blank sail or do structural blanks as a way to try to catch back up and get those vessels back somewhat on time.

Chris Parker: In the crazy market like we're in right now, things well outside of anyone's control, it is weather after all, what can customers, our customer base do? What can, uh, you know, shippers out there do right now?

Adam Kord: Yeah, Chris, I, I like the way you frame that, and I like the way you said outside of a customer's control, because this is something clearly that none of us have any control over.

Unfortunately, we're seeing more and more storms, whether it be right now it is typhoons in East Asia, or it could be hurricane season affecting Florida. It could be wildfires affecting my backyard in the Northwest, which has caused hampers to rail traffics, or record cold temperatures that cause brake lines to freeze. And I think with all of these conditions, it just comes back to what we talk about is, is flexibility.

You know, there, there has been a big push toward just-in-time inventory over the past few decades, which is great for carrying costs. But again, you need that flexibility to ensure that you can still get product, that you're not running too lean, or if you are running very lean, that you have alternative methods, and you have to be prepared for that. Do I need to look at ways to have air freight? Can I bring cargo into my facility routing one or two different ways? Because we are talking about typhoons, but remember, Shanghai is a massive transshipment port.

So if you are a, a supplier that's located in the Philippines and your normal route is always moving over Shanghai, well, you might wanna be looking at another route that routes over Singapore- Yeah ... just so you have different options out there if you are an importer into the US and you're located in the Ohio Valley, right, you wanna have different options that maybe I can bring cargo over the East Coast or the West Coast or the Northwest, uh, or Canada, right? And then I have multiple modes that I can use. So it all comes back to planning and to make sure that you are flexible and have some flexibility.

Chris Parker: Yeah. How are you staying flexible these days?

Adam Kord: How am I staying flexible these days?

Chris Parker: Yeah.

Adam Kord: I don't know. Going to the gym maybe. Uh, yeah. Try not to eat and drink as much.

No. Uh, so at, at, at Expeditors, how is Global Ocean staying flexible? Yeah, we work with a vast array of carriers. You know, we made a decision a long time ago to do a few things different than the market. Number one is to work with as many reputable carriers as we can. Yes, the majority of our cargo goes with the large global carriers but we use a, a host of regional and local carriers as well. And the reason we do that, just so we have options so that we can, we can route cargo all different ways. We have options. If there's a sailing, we're gonna be on it.

Number two would be, you know, the way we support our business. You know, Expeditors is different in that we support our business locally. Uh, Expeditors of our 333 locations, we do ocean operations in 250 of them. And if Carl was with us now, he'd be talking about how many places that they do air operations. And the reason why we haven't went to that service center model, uh, we're talking about China, right? Sure.

Um, we can manage all of our business from Shanghai, but then we wouldn't have the same expertise on the ground in a place like Qingdao, Xiamen, Chengdu, to understand the rails, the depots, the equipment yards, those things nature, which allows us to, when things happen, and things always happen in our business, it allows us to be able to react faster and stick closer to our customers and service providers.

Chris Parker: I love that. Thank you so much for this week. And, uh, yeah, we'll check back in the, in the future.

Adam Kord: All right. Thanks, Chris.

You are now at our current position. Links to everything we covered today, plus some extra articles of interest, are in the show notes.

And while you're there, check out the events and webinars we flagged for the weeks ahead. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week.

Be sure to subscribe to your preferred podcast platform so you don't miss future episodes. To learn more about Expeditors, you can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X, or simply visit us at expeditors.com. Take care, and I'll see you next time!