DACHSER again offers air freight charters for peak season

China Golden Week holidays: impact on operations

China celebrates its National Day on October 1, followed by official public holidays from October 1 to 3. However, it is a common local practice to have a week-long holiday. Production sites in China may stop operations earlier, or resume work later than the official holidays, especially this year when the mid-autumn festival, taking place on September 24, falls close to the National Day.

Most of the sea freight carriers announced blank sailings not only during the Golden Week period but also before and after the holidays to adjust their services in accordance with the weak market demand. Therefore, the current market situation for the trade lanes Far East-Europe as well as Far East-Americas are both challenging with limited space available. Reasons are not only the pre-holiday cargo rush but also delayed operations due to recent storms hitting the China coasts. Some carriers have been establishing additional blank sailings since week 38. The normal sailing schedule is expected to resume in week 42. For blank sailing updates on particular routes, please contact your DACHSER representative.

The Chinese customs will not accept importing clearance during the holidays. Therefore, import shipments cannot be handled on time from September 29 to October 7.
For export shipments, it is suggested sending bookings or instructions as early as possible before the Golden Week. Air freight space will be very tight and shipping equipment will be in great demand during the pre-holiday period.

DACHSER branches in China will be closed from October 1 to 7. The sea freight department at DACHSER Shenzhen branch will be operating with limited service on October 4 and 5; all further DACHSER branches in China will not be in operation until October 8. Air freight departments in most of the China branches will be under operation with limited staffing. Only shipments with pre-booking notice will be handled.

DACHSER launches 30th charter flight

Since the start of the coronavirus crisis at the end of February, DACHSER Air & Sea Logistics has chartered 30 aircraft and transported a total of over 60 million respiratory masks plus medical items, such as personal protective equipment and protective gloves, for its customers. At the end of April, DACHSER organized eight charter flights in one week for the first time in the company’s history, including three on the Hong Kong—Los Angeles route.

Short update on the general situation in the transport sector

In the second half of the year, the corona pandemic is still the predominant topic in the media. While at the beginning of the pandemic new findings on Covid-19 were being announced almost daily and many updates were also published by DACHSER on loading restrictions in Europe as well as in America and APAC, something like a "new normality" has now returned.

At the moment, there are no longer any universal country or customer restrictions. We would therefore like to ask our customers to clarify individual restrictions such as closures, changed opening hours etc. with the recipients of the goods themselves. We are closely monitoring the further course of the corona pandemic and will keep you informed immediately of any developments. Should new loading restrictions be imposed, these will be published again via our website.

If you have any questions on this subject, please contact your local contact person at the respective DACHSER branch.

Adjustment to China Customs Advanced Manifest (CCAM) Regulations