The new disruption is a disconnect between the liner trade and shippers as sea trade service providers increasingly fail to properly communicate freight delays to their clients, chief financial officer of Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation, Peter Su, has said.
With specific reference to the unforeseen development of traffic throttling in the Suez Canal, Su has said that no liner could have expected this would happen.
He said it was neither up to lines to control such events, nor within their means to manage the wilful disruption of an important sea link by rebels such as the Houthis in Yemen targeting maritime trade out of opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza.
In the meantime, blanked sailings have become the norm as schedule reliability makes way for wave upon wave of shipping disruption.
Su said considering the current capacity issues, with cargo demand exceeding equipment supply, lines could not be blamed for skipped sailings.
The shortfall also looks likely to last for some time, with industry research consultancy Alphaliner pointing to TEU newbuild requirements not keeping pace with current demand.
Whereas additional equipment capacity of at least 2.2 million TEUs should be entering the market, there is only 1.48m on the global order books.
Su said it was expected that attacks on vessels in the Red Sea were expected to impact sea supply capacity by as much as 20%.
In comparison, TEU capacity growth has been measured at 10% in real terms.
The current lag means space availability is increasingly outstripping existing capacity, impacting ports and driving up costs.
