What a port strike does to a shoe shop
Jonathan follows a container of trainers from a factory in Vietnam to a shop in Auckland, and shows how a nine day dock strike in between turned into a three month problem.
Red Sea reroutes and the price of a sofa
0:00 / 0:58
Sample the first 60 seconds free. Sign up free or log in to hear the whole episode.
Show notes
Red Sea reroutes and the price of a sofa
When shipping lines avoid the Red Sea and sail around the Cape of Good Hope, voyages get longer and the maths changes everywhere. Jonathan follows a sofa ordered from Izmir by a furniture shop in Dubai.
- The map: why a ship going the long way round changes schedules for months
- Fuel, crew and insurance, and how they end up in a retail price
- Why container shortages appear in places that have nothing to do with the Red Sea
- A Dubai shop owner on explaining delays to customers
- Rail, road and the Gulf's workarounds
Jonathan will take listener questions about reroutes on the next episode.
Transcript
Welcome back to Forty Feet of Steel. Jonathan Tay here. This week's object is a sofa, a grey three-seater, ordered by a furniture shop in Dubai from a factory in Izmir. On a normal day that sofa goes through the Suez Canal and down the Red Sea, about two weeks door to door. But shipping lines have been avoiding the Red Sea, so our sofa is going around the entire continent of Africa. We are going to follow it and work out what those extra weeks really cost, in fuel, in crew, in insurance, and in the price tag when it finally arrives. We will also look at why a reroute off Yemen causes container shortages in ports that have nothing to do with it. There is a map on the episode page. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
Open as text