“Saving Christmas” 20 Million TEUs at a Time

By Mike Jacob, President

Yes, Virginia, we are moving 20 million TEUs through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2024.

This is the same annual container volume that we saw in December 2021, when U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg came to Southern California and, somewhat infamously, made it clear that the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach had kept Santa in business that year.  As stated by the Secretary, “one of the reasons why Christmas was not, in fact, canceled is that Ports like LA and Long Beach moved record levels of goods, allowing an all-time record high in terms of retail sales this holiday season.” 

In essence, Christmas was saved because the San Pedro Bay ports were able to move over 20 million TEUs of containers that year; specifically, 10,677,610 TEUs in Los Angeles and 9,384,368 TEUs in Long Beach.  This wasn’t just a record for those two ports:  it was the first time that any Port complex in the United States had ever moved that much volume in a single year. 

And it was a feat.

As everyone in the supply chain will vividly recall, the peak of 2021 was accompanied by tremendous strains on the intermodal supply chain.  The recollections are vivid in part because the nightly news would eagerly run video of over 100 ships at anchorages and floating offshore from Southern California, of store shelves running bare, of new car lots sitting empty, and of someone’s neighbor who was not going to get their Peloton delivered by Christmas (and maybe not by President’s Day, either).  And, hard for the public and the media to capture, matching the vessel queues were equipment imbalances, full warehouses, trucking constraints, off-peak hour operations, and labor forces and employers grappling with high demand for service and hours while also dealing with COVID-related workplace restrictions. 

And the bottom line is, the intermodal supply chain was able to collectively save Christmas in 2021 because we found a way to deliver over 20 million TEUs through the Southern California ports, as well as millions of additional containers through the nation’s other gateways.

Three years later, in December 2024, we now find ourselves quietly approaching the same 20 million TEU milestone for container volumes in Southern California.  The Port of LA will once again move over 10 million TEUS and the Port of Long Beach is on track to move some 9.6 million TEUs and exceed its 2021 record total.

So, where’s the press conference featuring Santa this year?

In 2021, the successful management of this volume ultimately compelled the highest-level federal transportation official to fly to the nation’s largest Port complex to reassure consumers (and elves) that Christmas would not, in fact, be canceled. 

In 2024, while there is plenty of media coverage of the newsworthy conditions that have led to U.S. West Coast volume spikes – the Houthis terrorizing shipping in the Red Sea, the ILA strike and ongoing contract negotiation uncertainty on the East coast, and Panama Canal draft restrictions – the thoroughly less sexy, and harder to cover story, is that these volumes are being handled with almost none of the drama of 2021. 

In short, without a crisis, the story of supply chain resiliency is boring. 

For that we should all be thankful.  The maritime industry and its intermodal partners are demonstrating resiliency and flexibility.  And, this time, the nation’s 2021 poster-child for supply chain bottlenecks – the Southern California intermodal gateway – has instead come to the rescue, acting as the nation’s intermodal disruption relief valve, and absorbing volumes from East and Gulf Coast ports.

Has reaching 20 million TEUs worth of volume in 2024 been without hurdles and challenges in Southern California?  No, of course not; there have been (and continue to be) congestion issues and impacts on empties, terminal congestion, chassis management, and rail dwell times.  And, managing these issues has taken significant effort from marine terminals, ocean carriers, truckers, rail, warehousing, and their labor forces this year to facilitate these volumes.

But it is significantly better than 2021.  We are not suffering from hundreds of vessels queued-up offshore, never-ending warehouse capacity constraints, equipment storage challenges, excessively long dwell time, or the need to open up 24/7 terminal appointments.   

So, in 2024, have we once again saved Christmas? 

Absolutely.  We avoided any Grinch-inspired worst-case scenarios and kept cargo owners well-stocked with robust inventories, and with quality carrier and terminal services provided in as stable of an intermodal marketplace as possible given the challenges.

Instead of a 2021-like struggle, we were able to reach these similar volumes without much clatter or anyone springing to see what was the matter, proving that the Pacific intermodal trade lanes would provide resiliency and reliable service to the nation’s importers and exporters.

We spoke not a word, but went straight to work and filled all the terminals with cargo that the other coasts shirked.  And, if Santa were here, I’m quire sure he’d exclaim as he drove out of sight, “Happy Christmas to all, and to the intermodal supply chain stakeholders at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, ditto to what Secretary Buttigieg said last time!”  Am I right?