A massive container ship crashed into the main bridge of Baltimore’s beltway this morning, causing total collapse to the bridge and cutting off the city’s container port from the global ocean. At least 6 people are missing. 🧵 The collision of the Dali, built in 2016 by Hyundai and operated by Maersk, took place around 3 am last night. If it had occurred during rush hour this likely would have caused much more loss of life.

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1772515766929097088

Flexport currently has 2206 TEUs on container ships that were expected to transit the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden sometime in the next 72 hours. Houthi rebels missile attacks on container ships at this vital maritime choke point have now put all those voyages and much else in global shipping into a state of uncertainty. 🧵 On Saturday, Houthi rebels in Yemen hit one of the MSC’s container ships the Palatium III with a missile and narrowly missed ships from Hapag and Maersk on Friday. All 3 liners and several others announced an immediate pause to ships transiting the Suez Canal /2

Today I'm remembering my great grandfather Clare Koogler (left) who fought with his brother Bill (right) in the Meuse–Argonne offensive that secured victory for the allies in WW1. They celebrated Armistice Day in Paris on Nov 11, 1918, the holiday we now call Veterans Day. Clare, who our family always called Pops, passed when I was 9 years old, and I still have many great memories of visiting him in New Mexico.

Every year for Fleet Week, employees at Lucasfilm, creators of Star Wars, take a day to draw wonderful sidewalk chalk art outside their headquarters in the Presidio of San Francisco. Thought I'd share this year's pieces since there's a 10% chance of rain today. 🧵

I'm thrilled to announce that Dave Clark will be Flexport’s next CEO. Dave Clark (@davehclark) officially starts on Sep 1, 2022 to become the CEO of Flexport and a member of our board. We will be Co-CEOs for six months after he joins. I'll then step into an Executive Chairman role and Dave will continue to be Flexport’s CEO.

With the rise of DALL-E, everybody will need a mascot. Mine is going to be a lion holding a globe.

Wheat prices 📈 Corn prices 📈

Flexport is organizing an airlift of humanitarian relief supplies to refugee centers in Eastern Europe. You can help by donating to pay for more flights at flexport.org/donate. 🧵👇 A humanitarian crisis is unfolding as over 1M people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, at below-freezing temperatures. Another 4M people are expected to leave in the weeks ahead. Refugee sites are already short of critical supplies due to the scale of the crisis. /2

A suite of reports from Flexport Research on the impact of the Ukraine crisis on supply chains. 🧵👇 1: A brief introduction to where Ukraine and Russia sit in the complex interconnected ecosystem that makes up global supply chains.
flexport.com/research/commo…

Ukraine and Russia are major players in the air cargo market, and not just because their locations put them on the most direct flight routes from Asia to Europe. 🧵👇 Antonov is a Ukranian aircraft manufacturer, makers of the largest cargo airplane in the world, the Antonov An-225 and it's smaller but still huge cousin, the Antonov An-124. /1

Internal note from Flexport's air team:

Team - Things are rapidly evolving in Europe as Russia advances on Ukraine. There will be impacts to aviation that could be far reaching but we do not know to what extent at this time. /1 What we do know is that the FAA and EASA have issued a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen/Air Missions) that essentially places all of Ukraine and Russian air space off limits to commercial flights due to severe safety risks. /2

The decline in ships waiting just offshore of Los Angeles/Long Beach continues to be touted as a sign that port congestion is easing — despite the fact that the true number of waiting ships has not actually declined.

…w-freightwaves-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.freigh… The ports just made the ships wait out at sea to avoid air pollution in LA. The overall queue, including container ships waiting out at sea is larger than ever.

Global supply chains are a mess. The world's logistics infrastructure has proven incapable of scaling to the demands of a global economy going through more chaotic evolution than ever. 1/ Prices for pretty much all logistics and supply chain services have reached all time highs while service levels and transit times have never been worse. 2/

Tomorrow the new fees for not picking up your containers on time at the Ports of LA-Long Beach go into effect. The fees go up by $100 everyday, so by Day 30 charges reach $46,500 per container. 1/n In my tweetstorm last week I called out all the reasons that it was so challenging for importers to find available chassis and get appointments to pick up containers at the port.

https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1451673736877428742?s=20

2/n

What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks? Modern finance with its obsession with "Return on Equity." To show great ROE almost every CEO stripped their company of all but the bare minimum of assets. Just in time everything. No excess capacity. No strategic reserves. No cash on the balance sheet. Minimal R&D.

Yesterday I rented a boat and took the leader of one of Flexport's partners in Long Beach on a 3 hour of the port complex. Here's a thread about what I learned. First off, the boat captain said we were the first company to ever rent his boat to tour the port to see how everything was working up close. His usual business is doing memorial services at sea. He said we were a lot more fun than his regular customers.

Last night Flexport brought a taco truck to the Port of Long Beach as a big thank you to the ILWU laborers there working like crazy to clear this container backlog. A thread on what we learned! /1 First off, they told us that Flexport is the first outside company in the history of the port to send in a food truck as a sign of gratitude. They loved it. /2

I wrote a children's book about the ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal. All proceeds will go toward Flexport.org's urgent shipping of supplies to frontline medical workers in India. Order yours here! gum.co/flexport Big thanks to @paulg for editing the copy and making it more wonderful :)

Since the Suez Canal is the news, it's a good moment to share some history: From 1967 to 1975 the canal was intentionally blocked by the Egyptian military (using ships and naval mines) in response to the Israeli seizure of the Sini Peninsula during the Six-Day War. When the canal was closed, 15 ships (part of a southbound convoy) became stuck in the Great Bitter Lake portion of the canal and remained there for the full eight years!