My import container has been customs cleared, and there are no other holds on it. So, why does eModal say “No Appointments Available!”?
When faced with this situation, there are a few key facts to bear in mind.
- The most common cause of this situation is that the container is in a location for which no appointments are allocated.
- For a container to be available for an appointment, the terminal must send eModal the most current container status, with a yard location associated with an appointment allocation. It may be that the most recent information eModal has from the terminal indicates the container is in a yard location not associated with the terminal’s appointment allocations.
- The second most common cause is that all available appointment slots are already booked.
- Based on its capacity, yard strategy, equipment and other factors, the terminal decides how many appointments to make available for a yard location during a particular time period. It may be the available appointments for that yard location and time period are simply already taken.
- Two other possible scenarios are: 1) the container is located in a “peel-off pile” for off-dock dray, and; 2) the Ocean Carrier has assigned their own trucker for “door-to-door” delivery.
How to Troubleshoot
- Confirm you have the correct container number.
- Check that there is a Yard Location for the container. Some terminals will send “CLOSE” or “NOT-AVAIL” in the Yard Location field, indicating the container is not available for pickup. Some will send “Wheeled” or another indicator, in which case, the container may be available for pickup without an appointment. (This must be cleared with the terminal.):
- If the container is in a valid yard location, we suggest contacting the terminal to see if the container will be delivered from that spot and more appointment slots will become available, or if it will be moved to another row for delivery. Additionally, if the container will be re-spotted, we recommend you confirm what the expected free time will be once the container is in a deliverable location.
- If the terminal reports that the container is in a delivery location, and that there should be appointments available, we suggest you request they trigger an update to eModal, bearing in mind that the terminal pushes data updates to eModal. (In most cases, the data are not PULLED from the terminal by eModal.)
- After trying the above, if you are still unable to get a resolution, please open a ticket with eModal technical support, and we will make every effort to respond to your request as quickly as possible and help you resolve the situation.