How The LA Ports Plan To Ease Congestion Ahead Of Holiday Shopping

Joe Falzarano, owner of Huzzah Toys in Venice Beach, met last week with a sales rep from Hawthorne-based Bruder Toys America Inc. to place orders for the busy fourth quarter shopping period. But the pickings were slim.

“We are getting some product in, but not everything we want,” Falzarano said. “A key item like a fire engine, which is a basic staple for kids in terms of toys, is not going to be available for the holiday season due to the supply chain backup and everything sitting on the water.”

Merchants like Huzzah Toys are in the eye of “a perfect storm” brewing at the San Pedro Bay port complex, according to Christopher Tang, professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

Last week, there were 144 ships in San Pedro Bay, of which 85 were waiting at anchor or drifting along the coastline, according to Marine Exchange of Southern California, a nonprofit that coordinates traffic at the ports and churns out daily vessel arrival and departure reports.

The higher transportation prices have attracted other players in the shipping realm who are looking to profit by picking up the excess cargo. Freight lines that used to operate only from Asia to Europe, or Asia to Africa, are sending ships to carry goods to L.A. instead, “jamming the ports of California,” Tang said. “The more ships are stuck, more of the product is not going through because there’s congestion.”

To reduce the amount of time cargo spends waiting for pickup on the docks, local port officials on Sept. 17 extended hours during which trucks can pick up and return containers. Total Terminals International at the Port of Long Beach has opened its gates from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m., Monday to Thursday, for trucks to drop off and pick up containers in the same trip. The Port of Los Angeles meanwhile also expanded its weekend operating gate hours.

But Tang is skeptical the new extended hours will solve the problem.

“Right now, everyone is blaming the ports, but we have to be mindful that we are dealing with a supply chain problem, not one particular link. If you fix this link, you create another problem,” he said. “Suppose that the ports are operating 24/7, which is good, you can unload more containers, but then we don’t have enough people to load the containers onto the train or the truck. Also, Union Pacific Railroad Co. and BNSF Railway Co. are running at full capacity, and even if they can get the container on trains, they’re routed to the Midwest — usually to Chicago — but the Chicago warehouses are completely full. They cannot take more containers.”

Read the full article from the Los Angeles Business Journal here.