In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper published yesterday, Angela Titzrath, CEO of Hamburg Port operators HHLA, said that the biggest issue faced by the port is growing container congestion.
“Containers used to be with us for a day or two. Now it’s five days and a lot longer. Ships have waited up to ten days before being allowed to enter the port,” Titzrath told Frankfurter Allgemeine.
The container congestion is said to be a result of the numerous supply chain disruptions of recent years – the coronavirus pandemic, 2021’s Suez Canal blockage, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is though the latter has brought about the loss of 100,000 truck drivers from Ukraine and Belarus, exacerbating the driver shortage. On top of that, there are problems with rail freight, including delays caused by weather and construction projects.
A means of alleviating the congestion, according to Titzrath, would be for politicians to relax the Sunday driving ban that currently applies to commercial truck traffic on Sundays and public holidays from midnight until 10pm.
Following Titzrath’s comments, the CDU parliamentary group in Hamburg repeated the call for the Sunday truck ban to be suspended.
Photo: Miso Miso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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