A freight company has warned that New Zealand faces sharply higher transport costs, months‑long delivery delays and the possibility of fuel shortages as the Iran conflict ripples through global supply chains.
Rocket Freight director Lisa Coleman said local road transport carriers have already pushed fuel surcharges up by more than 30 percent and that the increases will “hit consumers across the board.” “It’s everywhere, it’s affecting everyone, and it will come down to the last dollar for every single person in New Zealand,” Coleman said. “Every product that arrives on shelves will be affected.”
Air freight capacity to New Zealand has tightened dramatically, Coleman said, after Dubai‑based Emirates — previously the country’s largest air‑freight operator — halted operations. Remaining carriers immediately added conflict and fuel surcharges, she said, and with only two main air freight providers servicing New Zealand and several airlines yet to return to pre‑pandemic schedules, competition is limited and prices have surged, particularly for outsized cargo. Coleman criticised some of the add‑on fees as excessive, saying “a lot of it looks like a marketing ploy and a money grab.”
Sea freight is under similar strain. Coleman said international lines have introduced “war risk surcharges” on marine transit policies of up to 50 percent. Many vessels are avoiding the Middle East and re‑routing around southern Africa, a move that can add as much as 40 days to transit times and significantly lift fuel bills. The closure of Dubai as a hub has left container schedules disrupted and vessels “out of position,” she added, forcing some operators to offload cargo at the nearest safe port.
Several shipping lines have invoked force majeure clauses, Coleman said — a contractual mechanism that can free carriers from delivery obligations during events such as war or government action. In practice that has meant some consignments were left at ports away from their intended destination, with importers forced to renegotiate onward carriage and absorb extra handling and repositioning costs. Coleman noted insurers often treat force majeure events as acts of war, meaning those losses may not be covered.
For now, the only relatively stable routes are shipments to Australia and China, but Coleman warned those lanes are not immune: “I expect prices on those routes to rise as fuel costs continue to climb.” She said US‑bound freight was already under pressure from tariff measures, compounding delays and cost rises for trans‑Pacific trade.
Beyond price‑shock and delays, Rocket Freight raised a wider supply risk: if the crisis intensifies, New Zealand could face tighter access to fuel at acceptable prices. “The supply is obviously going to be our biggest worry. This country will absolutely stop if we have to start fuel‑rationing,” Coleman said, warning that higher transport costs would ripple through the supply chain down to everyday items — “that loaf of bread — it’s going to increase dramatically just because of transport costs.”
The warnings in New Zealand echo earlier regional concerns about maritime safety and the resilience of shipping routes. Fiji’s Maritime Safety Authority has previously emphasised vessel safety and adherence to navigation standards; those priorities are likely to come into sharper focus as carriers alter routes and ports cope with out‑of‑position ships and redirected cargo. For businesses and consumers in the Pacific, the latest disruptions in air and sea freight to New Zealand and through Dubai are a reminder of how interconnected regional supply chains are, and how a conflict far from these shores can quickly impact availability and prices at home.
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