Chinese President Xi is intent on eradicating COVID. The policy has come at a high economic cost. A new lockdown in Kunshan could threaten electronics production and further snarl ocean and air transport.
The pandemic supply chain disruptions never seem to end, especially in China. Strict restrictions on movement in Shanghai mean cargo can’t get to the airport, resulting in backlogs.
With Shanghai in a COVID bubble, air cargo airlines are avoiding the city because there is little freight to pick up and imports may take a long time to get unloaded.
With limited manpower because of COVID, the main cargo terminal at Shanghai airport can’t process many freighter flights.
COVID closes a big cargo facility at Shanghai airport, creating another bottleneck for shippers ahead of the holiday inventory buildup.
Labor shortages at Chinese airports and pilot quarantine rules related to COVID are forcing airlines to scuttle many cargo flights to keep operations going and pilots from being put in isolation.
Shanghai, the largest container port in the world, has stopped operations because of a big storm.
An Ethiopian Airlines plane suffers extensive damage in a fire at Shanghai Pudong airport.
Shanghai Pudong Airport is getting crushed by heavy cargo volumes. Add to the mix a lot of red tape for export clearance and shipments are experiencing long delays and missed flights.
A perfect storm of events has created the mother-of-all cargo bottlenecks at Shanghai’s Pudong airport, where shipments sit at a standstill in crowded warehouses waiting for overwhelmed Chinese customs officers to inspect outbound PPE shipments.
