Peak Season Party at Los Angeles / Long Beach, BYOC (Bring your own chassis)

Despite an unpredictable year, import volumes have been concentrated at Los Angeles and Long Beach (LA/LB) ports.  Peak season (typically July – September) is still a thing, along with the fact that the supply chain through LA/LB is still two weeks faster from Asia than routing via East Coast, and a lot cheaper than airfreight.  

As a result chassis equipment supply for standard moves and trucker capacity both have been strained at southern California terminals (APM, WBCT, FMS, ETS, YTI, TraPac and PCT).   If you don’t supply your own chassis, the pool of available units has shrunk and in some cases, units are not available when the terminal pickup appointment is secured.  This is the unfortunate combination of volume surges, street turns (when a chassis issued for both an import/export load without returning the unit in between the moves) and longer dwell times at warehouse facilities.

Our shipping partner Hillebrand continues to work with multiple trucking providers to manage capacity and equipment to minimize the impact wherever possible.  We encourage you to reach out to your Hillebrand representative with an questions on the possible impact to your cased goods loads.  We also urge you to take precautions to protect temperature-sensitive orders with operating reefer or Hillebrand insulation. 

Should you have questions on pending shipments, please login to myHillebrand or contact import customer service at +1 732 388 0101.