VANCOUVER, B.C. —Prince Rupert, a remote port luring tourists with the slogan “Where Canada’s Wilderness Begins,” may want to consider a new motto: “Asia’s Gateway to Chicago.”
Container ships sailing across the northern Pacific are carrying more cargo and are setting course for British Columbia to avoid delays from a possible strike by West Coast longshoremen. Traffic in Prince Rupert soared 49 percent in July from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence, while volume dropped 19 percent in Seattle, its nearest major U.S. rival.
Canadian ports are gaining an advantage over their U.S. rivals amid an economic recovery that’s increasing container volumes from East Asia. While U.S. West Coast ports are mired in a labor dispute and congestion hobbles local railways, Prince Rupert is winning customers with its shorter sailing times from China and efficient infrastructure that can whisk freight to the U.S. Midwest and beyond.
“If people are using the Canadian ports now out of concern for a slowdown, and they like what they see and they like the processing times and the experience, they’ll continue to funnel some of their traffic that way,” Emma Griffith, a director at Fitch Ratings in New York who covers air and sea ports, said by phone Aug. 19.