THE fast-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19 is creating chaos in air and land connections across Southeast Asia, with travel bans keeping passenger flights and their vital belly cargo on the ground and month-long trucking delays developing at the China-Vietnam border, reports IHS Media.
And with tough measures from Asian governments to limit new Covid cases are forcing service providers to find alternative ways to counter the disruption and manage the highly interconnected regional supply chains.
To secure capacity for customers in the disrupted regional environment, France-based forwarder Geodis is expanding its air charter networks and DHL Global Forwarding has opened a new China-Laos rail service to avoid the chronic road congestion that has built along the northern Vietnamese border with China.
More than 2,000 trucks are now trapped in queues on both sides of the main border crossing at Pingxiang, China, and Lang S'on, Vietnam, causing delays of up to 30 days, according to DHL Global Forwarding.
An alternative crossing to the choked Pingxiang-Lang S'on border point at Dongxin, China, and Mong Cai, Vietnam, which reopened on January 10, is also experiencing backlogs.
The road bottlenecks have resulted in soaring demand for DHL's newly launched two-way China-Laos rail services between China and Southeast Asian countries, according to Steve Huang, CEO for greater China at DHL Global Forwarding.
'We launched the China-Laos Railway service in December, and it was just in time,' Mr Huang said in a statement.
DHL's scheduled China-Laos railway service runs in both directions between China and ASEAN markets - including Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. It combines rail with DHL's regional trucking network and provides a cost-effective alternative to air, DHL noted. For example, Chengdu-Bangkok road-rail services are 78 per cent cheaper and two days faster than air freight, and Kuala Lumpur-Chengdu road-rail services are 70 per cent cheaper with the same transit time as air freight, DHL said.
Southeast Asia is one of the world's fastest growing e-commerce regions, with a recent Bain & Company report forecasting e-commerce demand in 2021 will be 62 per cent higher than the US$74 billion market in 2020. Online spending in Vietnam will nearly triple from $21 billion in 2021 to $57 billion in 2025, with Indonesia, the region's biggest overall digital economy, forecast to spend $146 billion online by 2025.
In the air, hundreds of flights in and out of China, already on reduced frequencies because of the pandemic, have been cancelled by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CC) last month amid the spread of Omicron. Hong Kong has banned flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States until February 18. In Vietnam, travel remains limited to Vietnamese citizens returning home, foreigners invited on official business, and diplomatic officials.
Air freight connections are vital to support Asian production, with manufacturers traditionally using the belly cargo space on thousands of daily scheduled passenger flights to transport components and parts around the region to keep production lines moving. However, ongoing travel bans continue to limit available capacity.
SeaNews Turkey
And with tough measures from Asian governments to limit new Covid cases are forcing service providers to find alternative ways to counter the disruption and manage the highly interconnected regional supply chains.
To secure capacity for customers in the disrupted regional environment, France-based forwarder Geodis is expanding its air charter networks and DHL Global Forwarding has opened a new China-Laos rail service to avoid the chronic road congestion that has built along the northern Vietnamese border with China.
More than 2,000 trucks are now trapped in queues on both sides of the main border crossing at Pingxiang, China, and Lang S'on, Vietnam, causing delays of up to 30 days, according to DHL Global Forwarding.
An alternative crossing to the choked Pingxiang-Lang S'on border point at Dongxin, China, and Mong Cai, Vietnam, which reopened on January 10, is also experiencing backlogs.
The road bottlenecks have resulted in soaring demand for DHL's newly launched two-way China-Laos rail services between China and Southeast Asian countries, according to Steve Huang, CEO for greater China at DHL Global Forwarding.
'We launched the China-Laos Railway service in December, and it was just in time,' Mr Huang said in a statement.
DHL's scheduled China-Laos railway service runs in both directions between China and ASEAN markets - including Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. It combines rail with DHL's regional trucking network and provides a cost-effective alternative to air, DHL noted. For example, Chengdu-Bangkok road-rail services are 78 per cent cheaper and two days faster than air freight, and Kuala Lumpur-Chengdu road-rail services are 70 per cent cheaper with the same transit time as air freight, DHL said.
Southeast Asia is one of the world's fastest growing e-commerce regions, with a recent Bain & Company report forecasting e-commerce demand in 2021 will be 62 per cent higher than the US$74 billion market in 2020. Online spending in Vietnam will nearly triple from $21 billion in 2021 to $57 billion in 2025, with Indonesia, the region's biggest overall digital economy, forecast to spend $146 billion online by 2025.
In the air, hundreds of flights in and out of China, already on reduced frequencies because of the pandemic, have been cancelled by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CC) last month amid the spread of Omicron. Hong Kong has banned flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States until February 18. In Vietnam, travel remains limited to Vietnamese citizens returning home, foreigners invited on official business, and diplomatic officials.
Air freight connections are vital to support Asian production, with manufacturers traditionally using the belly cargo space on thousands of daily scheduled passenger flights to transport components and parts around the region to keep production lines moving. However, ongoing travel bans continue to limit available capacity.
SeaNews Turkey
