Container hub ports that used the week-long lull from ship arrival delays to prepare their landside facilities for the box onslaught are now “full to the brim”, according to a carrier source.
Container lines have discharged Asian imports wherever they can to turn ships around in North Europe as quickly as possible and return vessels to Asia, where several weeks of full loads at highly inflated spot rates await.
Maersk has told customers the strong cargo demand out of Asia Pacific would likely continue throughout the second-quarter, but…
“Schedule reliability is impacted by two main factors: recent delays from Europe via Suez Canal; and lower port productivity, especially on transpacific and European trade routes,” the company added.
As a result, the shortage of empty containers remains an “industry-wide challenge” across Asia, said Maersk, with this week and next seeing the “largest impact” because “empty containers coming back to Asia are delayed and import returns are lower”.
Carriers’ strategy to do whatever necessary to turn their ships around as fast as possible in North Europe will see an earlier recovery of schedules than would have been the case if vessels had waited at anchor outside originally designated ports that have subsequently become congested.
According to an analysis by SeaIntelligence, the negative effect on capacity for the Asia-North Europe trade from the Suez Canal stoppage will be over by week 22, after nine weeks of disruption.
“In essence, the Asia-North Europe trade is on track to have all the effects [of the Suez disruption] removed by early June,” said SeaIntelligence chief executive Alan Murphy.
As the container and space storage is getting worse recently, if you need any reliable partner to help solve your logistics problem, please feel welcome to email us at info@pfs-logistics.cn, and your requests will be responded very shortly.
TEL