Both gateway terminals have revised weekday gate hours with effect from the end of this month. The early window opens thirty minutes later and the evening window closes an hour earlier, with the Saturday opening unchanged. Weekday capacity is therefore reduced by roughly ninety minutes.
Hauliers are already reporting that the mid-morning slot is the first to fill, and we expect the practical effect to be longer lead times on delivery bookings rather than a visible change at the gate.
Booking earlier
The desk has moved to requesting delivery slots five working days ahead rather than three. Where a consignment has a fixed receiving appointment at the consignee, tell us at booking rather than after arrival, because reversing a slot allocation now takes longer than obtaining one.
Free time
Reduced gate capacity does not extend free time. Where a container cannot be collected within free time because no slot was available, the demurrage still accrues and the terminal will not generally waive it. On consignments with short free time we would rather pay for an earlier slot than argue about the charge afterwards.
We will confirm once both terminals publish the revised hours formally. The figures above come from the operational notices issued to hauliers.