A national ports strike in Portugal organized by the Sindicato dos Estivadores e da Actividade Logística trade union was, it has been claimed, just a local strike, impacting only Yilport Liscont, Yilport Sotagus and Yilport Setúbal.
Yilport, which operates ports in several European countries plus two in Latin America, said that each shift had been hit and that it had been impossible to find workers to undertake extra work. This meant that capacity and productivity at affected terminals was seriously compromised.
Box traffic was down by around 40% ,which Yilport said was a huge loss of volume that had forced customers to switch business to other terminals. It added that long-term sustainability of the affected ports was at risk.
Director of domestic shipping operator PSL Navegação, Francisco Marinho Leite said that a call that might normally take two days at a Lisbon terminal was now taking an average of six days or more because of the strikes.
Yilport said that it would continue to work with Lisbon Port Authority in developing the port, although without sufficient traffic volume it would be difficult to justify investing in the future of ports.