Congestion at the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach has reached record highs, with queues of as many as 41 container ships waiting to go alongside. This does not include the 27 ships already at berth. When striking longshoremen repeatedly closed the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for 10 days and eight days in 2002 and 2004 respectively, ship queues never exceeded 30 vessels, and today’s situation is notably worse. The total container fleet currently in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area represents a capacity of no less than 579,100 TEUs.
