Port of Los Angeles Just Posted Its Busiest Three Months Ever — and Rerouted Asia Cargo Is a Big Part of Why

The Port of Los Angeles moved 955,907 twenty-foot equivalent units in August 2026, 6% above its five-year average for the month, capping what the port calls the busiest three-month stretch — June through August, at 2.9 million TEUs combined — in its history, according to a Sept. 9 press release from the port. Year-to-date volume through eight months now stands at more than 7 million TEUs, up 1.5% from 2025 and roughly 5% ahead of the five-year pace.

The August total breaks down to 500,302 loaded import containers — nearly flat year-over-year but 7% above the five-year average — against 115,561 loaded exports, down 9% from a year earlier, and 340,044 empty containers, up 4% annually. The export decline and the empty-container growth moving in opposite directions from imports is the same lopsided pattern showing up nationally in July's trade data: more coming in than going out, and more empties repositioning as a result.

Executive Director Gene Seroka called it "an exceptionally strong summer" in the release, crediting resilient consumer demand, early holiday shipments and a broad cargo mix, and said September is shaping up to be another strong month as global trade patterns keep shifting. Brian Dodge, president and CEO of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, credited "an incredibly resilient consumer" through several years of disruption in the same release.

The routing story behind the volume

Seroka's comment about shifting global trade patterns understates what's actually happening upstream. Independent reporting on the same numbers, via Transport Topics, attributes part of the summer surge to cargo that would normally transit elsewhere: National Retail Federation Vice President Jonathan Gold told the outlet the shift reflects "bad weather in China and some rerouting away from the Panama Canal" amid drought concerns there. Combined with elevated freight costs tied to the Iran conflict and Strait of Hormuz disruption earlier this year, the picture is less "holiday season started early" and more multiple chokepoints pushing volume toward the West Coast at the same time.

That matters because it changes how durable the surge is likely to be. Frontloaded holiday volume has a known expiration date; rerouted volume driven by canal drought risk and weather delays in China persists for as long as those conditions do, and reverses quickly once they clear. NRF's own forecast, cited in the same reporting, calls for import volume to stay elevated in September before declining through the rest of the year — consistent with a rerouting effect unwinding rather than a structural demand shift.

What this means for drayage, chassis and warehouse capacity

Three things for anyone moving boxes out of San Pedro Bay right now:

Drayage and chassis tightness in the Inland Empire is not a one-month problem. Three consecutive months of above-average import volume, with September forecast to stay elevated, means drayage capacity and chassis availability around LA/Long Beach have had no real trough to recover in since June. Brokers booking drayage into Southern California warehouses should expect continued tight capacity and premium day-rates through at least September, easing only if NRF's forecast decline through Q4 materializes on schedule.

The empty-container build-up is a bellwether, not just an accounting footnote. A 4% year-over-year rise in empty containers alongside a 9% drop in loaded exports means more equipment is stacking up at or near the port rather than moving back to Asia loaded. That typically precedes either a push on export bookings to clear the backlog or additional empty-repositioning sailings — both of which affect equipment availability for anyone needing boxes for outbound loads.

If the Panama Canal or Chinese weather situation resolves, expect a share of this volume to snap back to its normal routing. Because Gold's comments attribute meaningful August volume to temporary diversion rather than permanent demand growth, forwarders with West Coast-heavy routing built around this summer's numbers should stress-test their capacity assumptions against a scenario where Panama Canal draft conditions and Chinese port weather normalize and some of this cargo reverts to its prior path.