In a market for ocean container shipping as has never been seen before, it appears many contracts aren’t worth the proverbial paper they are written on.

Supply Chain Digest Says...   Other forwarders allege carriers are changing the "shipped on board" dates of containers to take advantage of a move in rates higher, ignoring the bill of lading date.     What do you say?   Click here to send us your comments       Click here to see reader feedback

As just one of many examples of how tough this market is, there have been several recent reports of companies hiring bulk container ships and putting containers in the hold instead of the usual grain or coal. This week, for example, Alan Smith, the procurement director of global logistics at Coca-Cola, wrote in a post on LinkedIn that the company could not get the shipping containers and cargo space needed for transporting many manufacturing materials. Coke is now chartering three of these bulk ships.

“When you can’t get containers or space due to the current ocean freight crisis, then we had to think outside the box (or the container),” Smith added.

While there have been a number of reports of container lines refusing to honor contracts and forcing shippers to pay huge spot market rates, the problem may be peaking right now.

It’s even worse than that scenario. An article on theloadstar.com reported that many carriers are refusing to answer shipper phone calls into booking desks and similarly ignoring e-mails.

The simple answer to why this terrible customer service? The carriers’ ships are already filled up with containers for Asia to US and Asia to Europe sailings.

“No room at the Inn,” you might say, so the manager has turned off the container vacancy sign.

The Loadstar story also notes that many existing contracts have been essentially nullified by the carriers, with only refrigerated containers now covered by agreements, and normal container freight forced to pay highly elevated spot rates.

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As an example of this global logistics tale of woe, an anonymous freight forwarder told The Loadstar that “one carrier has only just advised us of the applicable rate on containers being shipped today, so we have no way of telling our customer in good time how much it is going to cost to move his containers from China.”

Other forwarders allege carriers are changing the "shipped on board" dates of containers to take advantage of a move in rates higher, ignoring the bill of lading date.

Favorable market conditions have also reduced carrier interest in new signing contracts with shippers.

Some market observers say they carriers are simply uninterested in starting conversations about signing new contracts with shippers until after the Chinese New Year holiday in February, when the carriers think there may be a return to something like normal times.

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