The chaos that has crippled global supply chains will extend into next year, says the world’s biggest shipping company.
AP Moller Maersk warns that a lack in truck drivers is preventing hundreds upon hundreds of container vessels from offloading goods all over the globe.
‘The whole system has become one gigantic bottleneck,’ said Maersk chief executive Soren Skou yesterday.

Shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk warned a lack of truck drivers was preventing hundreds of container vessels from offloading goods around the world
‘A too-large proportion of our capacity is tied up lying waiting outside the ports,’ he added.
The crisis is hitting ports around the world – from Felixstowe to Los Angeles. Skou said: ‘The ports are not working as well as they should do, so we can’t discharge containers as fast as we would like. It’s hard to see exactly when the situation will improve.’
He said that Christmas trading would be ‘safe’ from the supply chain issues, but added: ‘At least that’s what I’m hearing from our customers.’
As Felixstowe, a nearby port, struggles with congestion due to a shortage of lorry drivers as well as the global sea freight crisis, a 60-foot-high tower of shipping containers has risen in a field in Suffolk.
Hundreds of empty steel containers stretching for 350 feet are being stored on a former airfield near Eye, which is 26 miles from Britain’s biggest container port.
The site is being used by Maersk, which handles one in five of the world’s shipping containers, to store empty ones to clear space at Felixstowe.
Skou said the biggest problem preventing containers from leaving ports was a lack of workers, particularly drivers of heavy goods vehicles, despite salaries having risen ‘significantly’.
Skou stated that there are currently 300 container vessels sitting idle outside of ports. These comments were made as Maersk reported strong third-quarter earnings, aided by record freight prices as the global economy recovers after the coronavirus crisis.
Revenue grew nearly 68 per cent in the third quarter, to a record-high of £12.2billion. That was up from £7.3billion in the same period last year.
It reported profits of £4billion, up from £694millio.
Skou said: ‘In the ongoing exceptional market situation, with high demand in the US and global disruptions to the supply chains, we continued to increase capacity and expand our offering to keep cargo moving.’
There is an increasing demand for everything, including cars and furniture. This means that more capacity is needed. This has been accompanied by a shortage of labour, which has resulted in major back-ups at ports as well as higher prices.
Maersk added capacity, but it did not alleviate the port congestion. According to a Road Haulage Association survey there is currently a shortage of qualified drivers in the UK.