Add April to the list of months in 2019 that posted record-breaking cargo growth at the Port of New York and New Jersey. In April, total volume at the Port rose by nearly 10 percent, accounting for 605,263 TEUs (344,862 lifts) in April 2019 compared to 551,117 TEUs (316,675 lifts) in April of 2018. The gains bring the total volume for January through April to 2,398,108 TEUs, a 7.5 percent increase over the same period of 2018.
Import loads (TEUs) were also up at the Port of New York and New Jersey in April, rising by 9.1 percent when compared to April 2018. Import loads for April totaled 297,825 TEUs (169,805 lifts) as opposed to 272,903 TEUs in April 2018, a 9.1 percent increase. From January through April 2019, imported loads reached 1,203,674 TEUs (685,373 lifts), a 5.1 percent increase over the same period in 2018, which had 1,145,006 TEUs.
Export loads for April showed a 2.6 percent decrease in TEU volume from the previous year, totaling 131,311 TEUs (72,289 lifts) versus 134,843 TEUs (74,591 lifts) in April 2018. From January through April 2019, exported loads at the Port of New York and New Jersey reached 486,540 TEUs (269,125 lifts) versus 496,543 TEUs (274,890 lifts) for the same period of 2018, a 2 percent decrease.
Export empties increased by 22.4 percent, totaling 174,577 TEUs in April 2019 compared to 142,664 TEUs in April 2018. For the period of January through April, export empties totaled 703,049 TEUs versus 584,932 TEUs in the same period of 2018, an increase of 20.2 percent.
Rail volume in April increased by 9.9 percent from the previous year’s figures, totaling 56,911 containers for April 2019 versus 51,777 in April 2018. Rail volume during the months of January through April 2019 was 8.6 percent greater than the same period of 2018.
April also brought increases for autos moved through the Port of New York and New Jersey, totaling 50,871 in April, a gain of 10.1 percent when compared to April 2018. Auto volume for the period of January through April 2019 posted a 6 percent from the previous year.