The crew change crisis continues. Some very strong remarks by Hugo De Stoop, CEO of Belgian tanker giant Euronav, at the International Chamber of Shipping webinar indicated that ship owners’ desire to hide out from problems like crew welfare means they have no power to force governments to let their nationals back in. Their flag states have little influence on the world stage.
It’s the worst crisis in 200 years. And it’s a humanitarian crisis, as so many of the COVID-19-induced crises are. Who will step up and take action?
The speaker, Stefan Pieters of Jan de Rijk, was speaking of the relation between road hauliers and airport stakeholders. I believe most hauliers at ports, warehouses, inland terminals, and any cargo transfer points would be saying the same thing. And so far there has been little effort on this score.
Truckers are the low person on the pole, and are not connected to the facilities they must rely on for service. They have no leverage. So their problems go ignored.
There is a lot of money to be made by coordinating this aspect of the trucking business, if anyone will step up and do it.
And as the interview claims, data takes you only so far. There has to be a willingness to act and change procedures, rather than just send data. Facilities don’t want to recognize that; it requires workers with the power to make decisions on behalf of the cargo owner, and that would erode ‘profits’, meaning costs. You’d have to pay workers more for the ability to make decisions.
It makes a stronger case for end-to-end coordination by the same vendor, such as Amazon or Wal-Mart. But truckers would still often be left out.
The constant stream of blanked sailings is predictably disrupting many supply chains and networks. Shippers are not getting the message, and it’s costing them extra, unplanned expense. That will percolate down to their customers as well, both in reliability and costs.
And shippers are complaining. No wonder!! The carriers are bringing it on. They are not considering ultimate customer needs.
Anyone wanting to create a disruption in maritime and hinterland supply chains will pay attention and try to do something about this.
Supply Chain and Logistics 