The drop in cargo volumes on main trade lanes such as east-west Pacific freight, brought on by inflationary pressures in America, has resulted in leading lines ramping up blank sailings to 71% in the second week of May.
US ports intelligence platform, project44, has said in its Ocean Carrier Report for June that the 2M Alliance of MSC and Maersk, global shipping’s top two carriers by capacity, has aggressively cut back services to absorb the sharp decrease in demand.
Simultaneously, voided sailings have enabled a realignment of supply chain efficiencies, especially compared to the port-side delays experienced in the year’s first quarter on the three main trade lanes: Asia-Europe, Transpacific, and Transatlantic.
As far as congestion is concerned, blank sailings had brought about some improvement, project44 reported.
In addition, transhipped cargo has also caught up thanks to the decrease in deepwater cargo, recording a 26.5% dip in rollovers from a peak of 53% at the beginning of the year.
Outside the 2M Alliance, Evergreen is at the opposite end of the spike in the blank-sailing spectrum, announcing that only 12% of its booked sailings will be voided.
The Taiwanese carrier – a member of Ocean Alliance along with CMA-CGM, Cosco Group, and OOCL – leads the fray, attempting to increase market share by sticking to sailing schedules.
