Port congestion.

Port congestion is the accumulation of vessels, containers or trucks at a port beyond its handling capacity. It is external to both the shipper and the receiver, and it moves independently of the manufacturing or freight decisions upstream.

Australian container ports periodically experience congestion driven by industrial action, weather, vessel bunching and terminal capacity. When congestion is active, published transit times understate actual delivery windows by one to three weeks.

The procurement response is visibility, not optimism. Programmes carrying flooring on a critical path benefit from early production release, forward-committed freight bookings, and delivery windows that carry a genuine buffer against known congestion periods.