In all honesty the reason for increased cost is air freight on nearly empty airplanes. 95% of the air traffic nationwide is gone. The normal air traffic world wide uses 24,000 planes a day. Now over 16,000 of those planes are parked and many will never fly again period due to age and the cost to keep them usable. Most fish move with extra space on passenger aircraft. So canceled flights mean lack of supply and the only movement is on higher priced shippers like FedEx and UPS. I got quotes for 25 lbs of live rock to the Midwest via Delta airfreight at $70.00 and the same shipping via the other two was $285.00. See the problem here? We currently have no air service even though I live 6 miles from an airport that I used to receive Fish, rock and inverts all the time. Now the closest airfreight is 100 miles away and has no regular service. Fish would be very hit and miss. Most people in the industry do not want to take the chance of a dead shipment. This is affecting freshwater less due to some regional wholesalers who can deliver in limited areas via truck.
Supply chain is completely broken due the very reduced air passenger service. It is possible we will never see a recovery as the supply chain is broken all the way to the fish collectors and farms. Many other businesses are affected as well. Even the postal service purchases space on passenger planes...no way to compete with full air freight services since they have to charge much higher prices per pound since the passenger is not providing profits to the aircraft.
