Part-load lead time is the total number of days between sending an RFQ and the pallets reaching your warehouse, and almost every missed delivery week is caused by starting the count too late rather than by anything going wrong in transit. Work the calendar backwards from the week you need the goods on the floor. For the GCC allow four to five weeks in total. For northern Europe and the UK allow six to seven. For Central Asia allow seven to eight.
The countback, stage by stage
| Stage | Days | What goes wrong here |
|---|---|---|
| Port to your door | 1 to 2 | Groupage devanning queues at the depot |
| Clearance and border inspection | 1 to 3 | Pre-notification filed late, or a physical check drawn |
| Ocean transit | 5 to 22 | Transhipment adds 4 to 7 days over a direct sailing |
| Gate-in to sailing | 2 to 4 | Documentation cut-off falls before the cargo cut-off |
| Consolidation and loading | 2 to 4 | One late co-loader holds the whole container |
| Harvest, pack and pre-cool | 2 to 4 | Friday and public holidays are not packing days |
| Order confirmation and deposit | 3 to 5 | Bank transfer clearing time, not the decision |
| RFQ to firm offer | 1 to 3 | Incomplete RFQ triggers a round of questions |
Transit days by destination
Port-to-port days from Alexandria or Damietta run roughly as follows: Jeddah 5 to 7, Jebel Ali 11 to 14, Rotterdam and Antwerp 9 to 12, UK south coast 11 to 14, Poti and Black Sea 7 to 10, Central Asia via Poti or Bandar Abbas 20 to 30 with inland leg. Those are sailing times, not lead times. Add the gate-in, clearance and delivery stages above before you promise a date to your own customer, and pick the sailing deliberately rather than accepting the first one offered. Our note on reading a reefer sailing schedule covers what to look for.
Where the countback can be compressed, and where it cannot
The compressible stages are the RFQ and the confirmation. A complete RFQ returns a firm offer the same day, and a deposit sent on the day of confirmation removes three days from the front of the schedule. The stages that will not compress are ocean transit, the documentation cut-off and border inspection, because none of them are within your supplier’s control. Buyers who need to recover a week almost always try to take it out of packing, which is the one stage where speed costs quality. To shorten the front end permanently, send a complete RFQ using the checklist in the eight lines that get a same-day quote.
Peivana is the supplier, not a neutral freight advisor. The day ranges above are planning figures from current practice, and any specific sailing has to be confirmed against the live schedule at the time of booking.
Tell Peivana the delivery week you need and the destination port, and we will run the countback and tell you the last day to confirm. WhatsApp +20 10 9911 1918.