The Dockflow Dispatch

Everyone in freight is panicking about the $1,800/FEU rate spike this peak season — but that's the visible bill. The real damage is the clock: with the Strait of Hormuz closed and cargo piling up at congested hubs like Khor Fakkan and Mundra (up to 49 days late), demurrage and detention charges are quietly stacking up at $150–300 per container per day. On a single delayed box that can hit $6,300–$...

One Saudi trucking company made more in March than in all of 2025. Three bypass corridors around the Strait of Hormuz are now live, but each one has a chokepoint the carriers aren't leading with. We break down the corridors, the traps, and three things you can do this week to protect your bookings and your customer conversations. Chapters: The Saudi trucking company that beat its own annual revenu...

Trump flew sixteen US CEOs to Beijing for a three-day state visit packed with photo ops at the Great Hall of the People, the Temple of Heaven, and the Chinese leadership compound Zhongnanhai. The headlines looked big: 200 Boeing jets, Nvidia chip clearances, soybean and energy commitments. But Boeing's stock dropped 4% because analysts expected 500 jets, not 200. Beijing told Chinese firms to paus...

The conversation opens with the staggering reality of shelfware in logistics: 53% of SaaS licenses go unused and only 17% of B2B users actually adopt the tools they pay for. Michiel introduces the gym membership analogy to explain how shelfware works invisibly inside freight forwarders, where nobody escalates the problem and the cost just sits in the budget until renewal. The episode explores how...

In April 2026, the Port of Antwerp had three maritime incidents in ten days: an oil spill from the MSC Denmark VI that shut down the entire Scheldt, a barge that punched a hole through the hull of the Silver Sun car carrier, and the inland vessel Sola Gratia sinking 18 meters deep near the Royerssluis after a steering failure. Pauline and Michiel dig into what happens after the headline. They walk...

The conversation delves into the Mythos story and its implications for cybersecurity, highlighting the AI model's discoveries, the sandbox escape, and the real-world impact of AI models. It also explores the specific cybersecurity concerns and risks faced by freight forwarders, including the impact of ransomware and cyber attacks. The case study of Knights of Old illustrates the business impact of...

The episode discusses the decrease in supply chain tech investments despite increasing shipping disruptions. It emphasizes the importance of investing in tools for managing chaos and the impact of freezing tech investments during disruptions. Takeaways Investing in tools during disruptions pays off Reframe tech as risk management, start small, and capitalize on the frozen state of competitors

Five weeks in, the Hormuz crisis has stopped being a regional story. Daily booking volume into Gulf ports is down 81%. Asia-US spot rates are up 29%. War risk insurance has effectively vanished from the market — and carriers aren't sailing without it. Pauline and Michiel break down what's actually driving the disruption (hint: it's not just geopolitics, it's P&I clubs), why European forwarders...

The conversation delves into the challenges of data integration, the definition of a good integration, the failures of integration, the impact of manual data collection, the pitfalls of integration approaches, the importance of a proof of concept, and the three layers of technology. Key takeaways include the understanding that integration is an architecture decision, the real cost of a tool includ...

The conversation explores the impact of AI on the freight forwarding industry, highlighting the rise of AI-generated code and the potential competitive advantage of building custom tools. It delves into the limitations of traditional TMS systems, the four levels of AI transformation, the concept of vibe coding, the evolution of intermodal shipping, the risks of AI-generated code, the impact of AI...

Freight forwarders in 2026 are getting hit by three separate cost layers, demurrage, war risk surcharges, and EU ETS carbon fees, all at once, and none of them visible until the invoice lands. In this episode of The Dockflow Dispatch, Pauline and Michiel break down exactly where each charge comes from, why carriers aren't obligated to warn you, and what you can do about it today. From Hapag-Lloyd'...

On March 1, 2026, five vessels were struck inside the Strait of Hormuz. The Safeen Prestige, a 1,700 TEU container ship, caught fire. The crew abandoned ship. Within 48 hours, every major carrier had pulled out: MSC, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, ONE. All Gulf bookings suspended simultaneously. That's 170 containerships. 450,000 boxes. Frozen. In this episode, Pauline Van Ostaeyen and Michiel Gabr...

The U.S. Supreme Court just struck down Trump's IEEPA tariff programme — the largest American trade tax increase in thirty years, ruled unlawful in a 6-3 decision. Within hours, it was replaced with a new 15% global tariff under Section 122. Different legal authority. Hard 150-day expiry. Same freight reality. In this episode, Pauline Van Ostaeyen and Michiel Gabriëls break down what actually chan...