The pending strike at the UK’s biggest container port will divert ships and disrupt more than $800m in trade, analysis shows.
Industrial action by more than 1,900 workers is expected to bring the port of Felixstowe in eastern England to a standstill between Sunday 21 August and Monday 29 August.
Container shipments will be shifted to larger European ports, including Rotterdam, Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven, according to the analysis by Alps Marine, part of Russell Group, a data and analytics company.
Felixstowe handles about 4m teu of cargo per year and accommodates more ultra-large container vessels than Southampton and London Gateway combined, according to digital freight forwarder Zencargo.
But both of the latter ports have berths that can accommodate ULCs.
“The strike at Felixstowe could create new opportunities for neighbouring ports, as carriers are working on appropriate contingency plans that may potentially see the diversion of vessels to other ports,” freight forwarder Zencargo noted.
The disruption spells more congestion in northern European ports.
“These strikes could increase the backlog and in doing so create even more delays, and the effects of this will only be registered in the coming weeks and months,” added Russell Group managing director Suki Basi.
Industrial action is an issue for several container ports in northern Europe, although the throughput trend in Hamburg this year was more positive than expected: total throughput of 4.4m teu there in the first six months represented slight growth of 0.9%.
But Hamburg was the only one of four main ports in the region to report an increase.
Antwerp-Bruges, Rotterdam and Bremen/Bremerhaven all reported average declines in container handling of about 4.6%.
Hamburg said it is keen to see an agreement between negotiators in the unresolved wage dispute between the union Ver.di and German seaport operators.
