August was the beginning of a slow month for the freight business for a couple of reasons. With August being a month that doesn’t have any notable holidays, or any upcoming events that could speed production, a lot of slow moving business and cargo kind of find their way into the mix. Part of this is from a large impact from select European countries that take an extended vacation time, varying between the end of July and most August. Not only the activities in Europe, but the United States also had its fair share of issues as well with the quick approach of Hurricane Harvey.
Very prominent carriers overseas in Europe came to a halt this past August, giving their employees their yearly vacation time. During this vacation time, the whole industry slows as a whole, because of the workers obviously not working. This vacation time slowed freight tremendously because of the large companies being located in the countries that took this extended monthly break.
Just when things start to pick back up in the industry, the Gulf Coast was hit hard with a strong Hurricane named Harvey. Harvey hit the Texas coast as a category five hurricane, flooding the plains and ruining others homes. Not only affecting the people, but the industry itself was hurt as well. Flooding both Port Beaumont and Arthur, shipping ocean and air both had stopped for close to a week. The flooding also caused fuel prices to fly way high across the entire east coast, being one of the main intakes of oil from the gulf.
August’s events have been crucial to the growth and consistency of not only smaller companies, but as well as larger companies who receive often from overseas. Now that September is rolling through, we could be expecting things to return to normal in the industry, so we hope.
