Lunar New Year freight: decide what to expedite before paying for speed

CMA CGM Vietnam’s February 5, 2026 notice set out holiday shipping-instruction deadlines. Its VNSGN/VNVUT table listed PEX 3 vessels CMA CGM ZION and APL DANUBE departing February 18 and 25 with the same February 13 cutoff at 11:59. A buyer watching only departures could mistakenly allow another week to finish documentation for the later sailing.

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The combined SI/VGM field concerns shipping instructions and verified gross mass. No time zone appears beside these entries; confirm the applicable clock with the booking provider. Document acceptance and physical cargo acceptance need separate confirmation.

Sources: [1]

Hapag-Lloyd’s retained revised holiday notice lists no cancelled US2 sailings, yet shows the February 21 Ningbo departure adding Savannah and omitting Norfolk. It also describes US1 connections through Busan during weeks 7–9. This retrospective uses the retained notice checked October 5, 2026; its exact publication and revision dates are not established. The entries document announced arrangements, not proof that each vessel followed them.

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That distinction changes an expedite request. If an order’s planned discharge port changes, buying a faster domestic leg from the old port cannot solve the problem. First obtain the revised delivery path from the provider managing the international booking. Then compare the actual destination, transfer requirements and usable arrival date. Keep any proposed inland move conditional until those details are resolved.

Use one row per order and keep the owner of the unresolved task visible. A supplier, booking provider and domestic carrier may each control a different part of the timeline. Ask each party for a deliverable it can actually confirm. “Expedited” without a quantity, a location and an availability date leaves the buyer unable to compare offers.

For an illustrative purchasing exercise, assume demand is 40 cases a day, usable stock is 400 cases and a proposed replenishment arrives in 14 days. If demand stays constant and there are no other receipts, the stock covers 10 days. The uncovered four days represent 160 cases. Those are planning assumptions, not a forecast or a service promise.

The purchasing team can now evaluate a targeted 160-case movement rather than automatically expediting the entire order. Add an explicit allowance if demand is uncertain or if the business requires a reserve; do not hide that allowance inside the arithmetic. Confirm that the cases selected are the products customers need. Aggregate inventory can look adequate while one essential item is unavailable.

Ask whether the alternative can deliver those cases before the shortage begins. If supplier preparation or document completion prevents that, a faster later leg may add cost without protecting the missing sales or production. The useful comparison is between feasible complete paths, including release and delivery, rather than advertised transit times for isolated legs.

Put the base option and expedited option on the same purchasing sheet. Show extra handling, split-shipment costs, any additional storage and the domestic movement from the actual release point. Keep estimated charges labeled. Ask the international provider which existing booking costs remain if the order is split or rerouted; do not assume an unused leg will be refunded.

Finally, set a decision deadline earlier than the next confirmed cutoff and assign someone to update stock exposure when the plan changes. A useful exception approval states what quantity the extra spend protects and why the proposed path can still work. February’s notices demonstrate how different deadlines can overlap; the buyer’s order-level calculation determines whether buying speed has value.