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Perfect storm logistics Pandemic pressures, prices and insatiable demands have pushed global logistics into the eye of a perfect storm, says expert David Emerson Global supply chains are facing unprecedented challenges IS THE AVIATION SECTOR GOING TO BE THWARTED IN ATTEMPTS AT INFLIGHT SERVICE RECOVERY? HOW DID THE CURRENT LOGISTICS CHALLENGES START? The issues have been happening for the last 18 months. What started out as an issue triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic of Q1/2020, quickly escalated into a major global supply chain problem. Logistics faced a near perfect storm with Chinese factories shutting down and labour shortages caused by the pandemic, combined with buyers over buying product to try and protect their businesses from those very same shut downs and shortages. DE
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HOW DID REACTIONS TO THE PANDEMIC IMPACT THE ISSUE? The problems escalated into issues
relating to the global demand for Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) with governments over ordering huge amounts of PPE that ended up sat at ports for weeks, months, even years in some cases. The UK as an example has over 30,000 containers of PPE still sat in UK ports that is either unusable, faulty or otherwise not yet moved on. The US and other markets have the same issue. The UK has also had to deal with the fact that carriers don’t want to call at UK ports because of issues around BREXIT, customs challenges, port infrastructure and the lack of drivers. As a result UK importers have had it even harder than EU or US importers. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR COSTS? If containers aren’t being restituted back to their original destination, they aren’t re-entering the supply chain and this has has a massive impact on the ability to provide empty DE
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