Because delays trigger time-based charges that grow every day.
What it is:
The freight rate is only one part of shipping cost. Delays create additional charges such as demurrage, detention, storage, and emergency inland transport.
How it works:
Ports and carriers allow limited free time. When a container stays too long in the terminal or outside the port, daily fees apply automatically. These charges accumulate quickly and are billed separately from freight. A cheap freight rate does not protect against them.
Examples:
- A low-cost route is delayed at a transshipment port. The container waits several days, generating demurrage charges that exceed the original savings.
- A delay causes missed warehouse appointments, requiring urgent trucking at higher cost.
Facts:
- Demurrage and detention charges accumulate daily, not as a one-time fee. Once free time expires, ports and carriers apply charges automatically for every additional day a container remains in the terminal or outside the port.
- Daily rates often range from $100 to $300 per day, depending on the port, carrier, container type, and how long the container has already overstayed. Because rates are often tiered, the longer a container is delayed, the higher the daily charge becomes.
- As a result, a delay of just five to seven days can easily generate $800–$1,200 per container, and in busy or congested ports, the total can be even higher. These charges are invoiced separately from freight and are rarely negotiable after they are incurred.
In many real shipments, time-based charges end up costing more than the original ocean freight savings that came from choosing a cheaper route.
Misinterpretations:
- Many shippers focus primarily on the freight rate when comparing routing options, assuming it is the main driver of total shipping cost. This is a natural assumption, because freight is the most visible line item in a quote.
- Time is often more expensive than transport. Delays trigger costs that grow every day, while the freight rate stays fixed. A route that saves a few hundred dollars on freight can quickly become more expensive if it increases the risk of port dwell, missed connections, or late pickup.
- Another common misunderstanding is that demurrage and detention are rare or exceptional. In practice, they are a regular part of ocean freight when planning does not account for delay risk.
Who solves it:
Skypace evaluates routes using more than just freight prices.
During planning, the platform considers:
- historical delay patterns;
- port congestion behavior;
- transshipment risk;
- sailing frequency and buffer time;
- free-time limits and dwell exposure.
This allows Skypace to compare routes based on total cost risk, not just the cheapest headline rate. Freight price is still part of the decision, but it is weighed alongside the likelihood of delays and time-based charges.
By factoring time risk into routing decisions upfront, Skypace helps shippers avoid situations where a low freight rate leads to much higher overall costs later in the shipme
