On Sunday the biggest container ship to ever berth at Northport, the 261m-long Constantinos P carrying 1340 containers, arrived. Up to 1000 trucks - travelling either at night or during off-peak traffic times - could be needed to move the cargo between Marsden Pt and Auckland from Thursday.
Ports of Auckland had already recruited an additional 15 people to help it process the containers more quickly and hoped to have one extra crane crew in place before Christmas.
"Our biggest problem is that we don't have enough trained staff to handle the extra demand," Ball said.
It was also ramping up the use of its robot straddle carriers to help move more freight.
Before Covid, it was uncommon for Ports of Auckland to have any ships waiting to be unloaded and on the odd occasion when it did there would only be one or two at a time, Ball said.
"I think the largest queue previously has been when brown marmorated stink bugs were discovered on board car ships, which resulted in quite large delays to car imports. So this sort of thing only happens in exceptional circumstances, as we have this year with Covid."
Ball said the delays were not unique just to New Zealand and were happening worldwide.
Demand between Asia and the US had also grown by more than 20 per cent, while New Zealand was facing "unprecedented and unexpected" demand.
The demand was expected to continue into 2021, with more than a month of back orders from manufacturers in China waiting to be shipped.
Last month, the Herald was contacted by a number of frustrated readers who told how they had been waiting for between four to six months for furniture to arrive from overseas as retailers including Freedom blamed impacts from Covid for delays at the ports.
Other retailers have also had to apologise to customers as the delays mean their pre-ordered stock won't arrive before Christmas.