News

We provided a statement on Christmas in the UK

15.01.2021 | Unfortunately, not only our drivers spent Christmas in England. We did not keep that to ourselves!

The end of 2020 was not overly joyful for many of us, but it was (not only our) lorry drivers who got stuck in England because of the closure of the border with France who bore the brunt of it. As such, they could not spend Christmas with their families. We want to once again thank all those who were affected by this.
 

Less trucks are travelling to Britain now
Never before had so many trucks headed to Great Britain as at the end of the year with the approach of Brexit. This is yet another reason why there was such chaos when the pandemic lockdown came into effect. Jan Šlechta, the executive director of the Kolín freight company, Šlechta transport, informed Právo of this (Tomáš Volf).

How has your company been affected by the coronavirus and the associated lockdowns and economic decline?
We carry parts for the automotive industry, roofing materials, iron and other materials. If I am to summarise things for the entire coronavirus period, I would say that the first wave in spring hit us all hard, customers began to worry about having enough cash on hand and about whether they would have any sales. Normal invoice maturity in transport is 60 days, but it was extended by approximately one month. It was necessary to have a financial cushion in order to survive. It was a difficult period. When they closed down automotive production, the carriers that were used to working for that industry moved to other work. This significantly reduced the prices and it took us months to get them back. Luckily, we were able to heal in autumn. The fact that we specialised in Britain played into our hands and at the end of the year they wanted more material there prior to Brexit than I can ever remember, about 50 percent more than in a regular year. That is why there were such queues there at the end of the year when the borders were closed for health reasons. There had never been so many vehicles there before. So there were more loads and we had to also hire other vehicles.

The British were trying to stock up due to the uncertainty around the Brexit agreement which was reached on Christmas Eve. How do things look now in the New Year and under the new customs regime with customs clearance at the borders? Are there any queues?
According to what I have heard from others or seen in photographs, there aren’t any queues. It’s completely empty. Our first trucks are heading there now, so we don’t have any experience yet. There is admittedly an agreement, but neither the carriers nor the manufacturers know how exactly it will work. Nobody really wants to go there now.

How many drivers do you have? Has anybody been infected with Covid or had to go into quarantine?
We have 22 drivers. One was in quarantine, because he had symptoms, a fever. But in the end he was not positive. Of course, we use facemasks and disinfectant. Documents are sent electronically, nobody wants to touch any paper, not even our drivers. In England, the locals did not really want to wear masks during reloading and they laughed at it. I’m not at all surprised that the situation is as it is there.

As far as drivers are concerned, there is a general lack of them in the market…
There are not many good truck drivers around. If you find them, you try to hold on to them, to pay them well. We are a family company and we take care of our drivers so we are not one of those companies with a lack of drivers. But according to what I have heard from acquaintances, the places that pay average wages are having a problem finding drivers. Some who also drive to England have found that their drivers do not want to go there after that incident (the pandemic lockdown – editor’s note) and they will only go, if the company seriously ups their pay. I haven’t heard anything like that from our drivers, that anybody was badly affected by it or no longer wanted to go there. We tried to compensate them in their bonuses, even though, of course, it was not possible to replace the time lost with their families at Christmas.

Several of your drivers got stuck in the queues in England before the holidays. How did they cope with that week spent in queues and airport parking areas?
I have to say that they took it well. I would have been furious, but they weren’t. They understood that we had never planned for them not be back home on Christmas Eve and that we had not expected them to get stuck there. We had ten drivers there and most of them got back on December 26 – nobody was back in time for Christmas. We left two drivers there over the holidays. And we sent the trailers by boat, because that was the only way to get the material there by the end of the year.