For the first time in recorded history, East Coast ports handled more container volumes than West Coast ports, said Sea Intelligence in their recent analysis. However, new December data from Descartes Datamyne reveal that West Coast ports are gaining market share. Data from October and November 2022 showed that container volumes arriving at West Coast continued to decline. During the same period, inbound volumes to the ports of the East Coast grew by nearly 8%. The 2023 Port Performance report of the US Department of Transportation disclosed that the monthly TEU throughput at selected U.S. container ports peaked at about 4.7 million TEU in May 2022. “The greatest increase in TEU handled, however, has taken place on the Atlantic coast where, between January 2019 and August 2022, the ports of New York and New Jersey, Virginia, and Savannah and the Gulf coast port of Houston outpaced the TEU throughput of the Pacific coast ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland,” highlighted the report. While the December figures from Descartes Datamyne confirm US import volumes are slowly aligning with 2019 levels, the company's report mentioned, "top West Coast ports reversed their market share decline versus top East and Gulf Coast ports." "Comparing the top five West Coast ports to the top five East and Gulf Coast ports in December 2022 versus November 2022 shows that, of the total import container volume, the West Coast ports grew to 38.1% in December, up 1.2% versus November and the East and Gulf Coast ports declined in December to 45.5%, down 1.7% versus November," added the report. Shippers, however, still fear an industrial action could suddenly occur on the West Coast, similar to 2002 and 2014. The Journal of Commerce (JOC) talked to retailers and non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOs), who stressed that they will “continue to route as much of their discretionary cargo as possible through East and Gulf coast ports due to uncertainties over the direction of West Coast longshore contract negotiations.” “I have heard no one say they are going back in any material way to the West Coast,” an NVO told JOC. “They’d be crazy to. They’d just be asking for trouble.” Contract negotiations on the West Coast have been dragging since May 2022 and they further stagnated after a labour issue occurred at the Port of Seattle involving a jurisdictional dispute between the ILWU and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. In the meantime, carriers increased their services to the East Coast, adding fuel to the fire. JOC reported, “New York and New Jersey added 10 new vessel services in 2022, seven of which originate in China, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent.” This cargo diversion has made the Port of New York and New Jersey the busiest port complex for several months in a row last year. However, taking the entire year into consideration, Los Angeles Port announced its volumes reached nearly 10 million TEU in 2022, the second highest in the Port’s 115-year history. "The achievement marks the 23rd consecutive year the Port of Los Angeles has been ranked the busiest container port in the nation," according to the port's press release.