“We like to call things ‘black swans’ to explain why we weren’t prepared,” Bjorn Vang Jensen said—paraphrased by Judah Levine at the recent Stable Chaos: Digital Supply Chain Summit. The point: calling something a one-off doesn’t make it one. The last five years have proven that extreme events cluster, and the job of modern procurement and logistics teams isn’t to pray for “normal” to return—it’s to design systems that keep moving when everything else changes.
Here’s what Judah covered, what the market data shows, and practical steps procurement and logistics leaders can take now.
The Practical Risk Map
Judah walked through the recent set of disruptions that have repeatedly reshuffled logistics, economics, and routing incentives:
Geopolitics: Red Sea disruptions, Russia-Ukraine war, ongoing Taiwan/China tensions. The Red Sea crisis alone diverted the vast majority of container traffic away from a waterway that previously handled 12% of annual global trade. Vessel traffic through the Suez plummeted by 66%, with $200 billion in cargo rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope. The detour adds 10-14 days to transit times and removes 6-7% of global vessel capacity from the market.
Trade policy and tariffs: Front-loading and sudden demand swings. In July 2025, China-U.S. bookings dropped 15% year over year amid tariff volatility, while global loaded imports still rose by a few percentage points—evidence of trade rerouting and market resilience.
Labor actions and port congestion: ILWU negotiations, ILA strikes, and numerous labor actions across ports. During the pandemic peak, container rollover ratios jumped from 5-17% pre-crisis to 28-56% in April 2021. Median port time increased nearly 20% from pre-pandemic levels.
Accidents & infrastructure failures: Ever Given blockage, Baltimore Bridge collapse, vessel fires—all demonstrating how single-point failures paralyze global routes.
Climate and water-level effects: Panama Canal low water restricting daily transits, Rhine drought constraining European logistics, Amazon flow disruptions impacting Brazilian supply chains.
Macro demand shocks: The pandemic created unprecedented volatility, with U.S. imports from Asia nearly 30% higher in December 2020 than in December 2019.
This isn’t just a long list—Judah showed how these shocks are visible in market data.
The Market Data Highlighted
Pandemic Extremes: When COVID hit, FBX (Freightos Baltic Index) rates for Asia → U.S. West Coast surged above $15,000 per 40-foot container and stayed elevated for 8-9 months. Pre-pandemic baseline rates typically hovered around $1,500-$2,000.
Red Sea Impact: When Red Sea diversion pressure peaked, FBX Asia → U.S. West Coast spot rates rose toward $5,000 per container—a 250% increase from baseline that fundamentally disrupted procurement budgets.
July 2025 Tariff Volatility: During recent tariff-driven front-loading, rates spiked sharply but briefly as shippers scrambled to beat deadline windows.
Trade Resilience: Even amid disruption, containers kept moving. During the pandemic’s most congested period, U.S. ports processed record container volumes despite inefficiency. When China-U.S. bookings dropped 15% in July 2025, global imports still grew 5%, showing how trade redirects rather than evaporates.
Two Linked Lessons
1) Shocks Change Incentives
Judah illustrated how volatility breaks traditional contracts by shifting incentives. When spot rates climb above contract rates, carriers face powerful financial incentives to prioritize high-paying spot business—leading to rolled contract boxes and premium demands. When spot rates dip below contract rates, shippers become incentivized to no-show on committed volumes and shift to cheaper spot options.
During the pandemic peak, when spot rates soared well above contracts, some shippers experienced rollover rates exceeding 50%. When the market unwound and spot fell below contract levels, shippers abandoned fixed-rate contracts en masse.
2) Trade Is Resilient, But at What Cost?
Global trade proves remarkably resilient even amid extreme disruptions. The global container shipping throughput index reached 134.4 by August 2024, demonstrating sustained growth despite setbacks. However, for individual shippers, global resilience offers cold comfort when you can’t secure containers or face freight costs that have increased 15-fold.
The question isn’t whether trade continues—it’s whether your organization can maintain service, margin, and strategic optionality when the next disruption hits.
Practical Ways to Build Stability (Not Illusions of Control)
Judah’s conclusion was operational: prepare for the types of disruptions you can reasonably expect, and reduce the situations that let incentives break your contracts. Here are practical, implementable steps:
1. Update Your Risk Matrix (Now)
Move beyond “probability × impact” checklists. Add scenario triggers: Red Sea closure, Panama draft reductions, specific tariff announcement windows, and labor strike declarations.
Connect each trigger to operational playbooks: routing alternatives, partial inventory holds, surge freight options, and clear decision owners.
2. Use Index-Linked Contracts for Portions of Volume
Index-linking ties contract adjustments to transparent market benchmarks (FBX for ocean, FAX for air). When prices move, the contract rate moves with them—removing incentives for carriers to roll boxes or shippers to no-show.
Instead of “$4,000 per container for 12 months,” an index-linked contract states “We will pay 97% of FBX01 + $50 per container, adjusted quarterly”. As the benchmark fluctuates, the contracted price adjusts accordingly, ensuring competitive pricing without constant renegotiation.
Pair index-linked contracts with hedging: Freight derivatives tied to FBX are traded on exchanges like CME, letting shippers and carriers manage price exposure and effectively lock in freight costs.
3. Re-Architect Contracting Cadence: Long-Term Partners, Short-Term Agility
Keep strategic long-term partners (MSA/SLA relationships, commercial trust). But reallocate volumes and lane commitments on a 3-6-month cadence based on market indicators.
Build contractual guardrails: minimum/maximum bands, update cadence, transparent surcharge handling, and reallocation rules.
4. Make Spot Strategic (Not Panic-Driven)
Judah and others at the Summit noted: spot is a relief valve. Use spot intentionally for low-volume, sporadic lanes; keep contracts for core lanes.
Track the “ghost lane” problem—MIT research shows approximately 70% of contracted lanes never materialize volume. If you have many ghost lanes, rethink tender breadth and move low-probability lanes to spot.
Of ghost lanes, 85% tend to be new lanes not previously bid, and on the 5% of new lanes where freight materializes, contract prices are 13-40% higher than spot market prices at the time loads are hauled.
5. Invest in Market Intelligence and Automated Alerts
Real-time indices (FBX, FAX), lane-level price benchmarking, announced vs. actual transit times, and curated key-event signals (port strikes, canal draft changes) are table stakes.
Combine indices with internal data —planned volumes, inventory days, lead times, and supplier constraints —to drive automatic RfQ generation or hedging triggers.
6. Script Your Contingency Plays
For each major scenario, prepare pre-approved supplier lists, defined reroute costs, inventory moves (pre-position buffer vs. just-in-time tradeoffs), and executive escalation thresholds.
Practice the playbook with tabletop exercises and post-mortems.
A Short Checklist for Procurement Leaders (Next 60 Days)
- Reassess core lanes: Which 20% of lanes cover 80% of your volume and are mission-critical?
- Calculate your ghost-lane rate: What % of contracted lanes moved no volume last year?
- Pilot 10-20% index-linked volume on a few high-value lanes (with hedging if available)
- Subscribe to lane-specific alerts (FBX/FAX + Terminal lane dashboards) and set 3-6 month cadence reviews
- Run a single 2-hour tabletop on a Red Sea/canal closure scenario to test playbooks
Chaos is The New Baseline
Supply chain disruptions lasting longer than one month happen, on average, every 3.7 years—and recent history suggests that estimate may be conservative.
The right posture is not paralysis, but preparedness: scenario-aware planning, flexible contracting, market-linked pricing, and operational playbooks that can be executed fast. Do those things and you don’t eliminate disruption—you limit the damage and preserve service, margin, and strategic optionality.
Freightos Terminal (FBX, FAX, lane benchmarking, key-event alerts) gives independent market benchmarks and lane signals. Compare spot vs. contract rates, run repeatable tenders, and implement index-linked frameworks where useful
Want help turning this checklist into a lane-by-lane action plan? Reach out to our team—we’ll show you what your risk matrix could look like tomorrow.
