Sea-Intelligence analysis: Shortage of blank sailings in Golden Week

Photo: Freepik

Sea-Intelligence reports that we are now five weeks away from China's National Day known as Golden Week, and carriers may make cancellations to manage supply due to weak market demand significantly reduced

"However, no significant capacity reductions have been reported by carriers this year," stated Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

Considering the current combined Transpacific capacity reduction for the 4-week Golden Week period (Golden Week plus the next three weeks), carriers have scheduled capacity reductions of only 3%, compared to a decline of 12 .4% in 2019 and an average decline of 10% from 2017 to 2019.

Specifically, 3.7% is slated to be taken out on the Asia-North America West Coast and 2.2% on the Asia-North America East Coast, both of which are the lowest compared to the pre-pandemic years.

"If we compare the current percentage reductions to pre-pandemic levels, then 10-13 extra Transpacific sailings and 6-10 additional Asia-Europe sailings will need to be blanked to match 2019," Mr. Alan Murphy explained.

According to a statement, with 5 weeks left until Golden Week, there is not much time left for carriers to announce more cancellations, because the closer they are to Golden Week, the less time there is for shippers to plan exception handling. and there have been many complaints from shippers due to freight rates and a lack of promised vessel allocation in recent years.

Moreover, with slow demand during the peak season, it is reasonable to anticipate that the blank sailings required to maintain the market steady would have to exceed what was done in 2017-2019, putting additional pressure on the carriers' blank sailings strategy in October 2023.

Source: Phaata.com (According to ContainerNews)

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