The Alliance members Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Yang Ming and HMM have finalised their April network plans, which feature vessel upgrades on Asia to North Europe, Mediterranean and US east coast services.

Lead line Hapag-Lloyd said one of the key highlights would be the deployment of its 23,500 teu newbuild ULCVs on the Asia-North Europe tradelane to replace smaller ships.

According to analysts at maritime intelligence firm eeSea, who are shifting through the separate Day 7 announcements, apart from the reduction of transpacific loops and some rotation changes, there is little of note so far.

“No new services, no pendulum splits, and there are 17 services with no rotation changes at all,” said eeSea analyst Patrick Fach-Pedersen.

Keeping track of carrier capacity changes is a full-time job for analysts like eeSea, which have the onerous task of sifting through customer advisories, website changes and, in some cases, just piecing together details from AIS data to determine schedule changes.
“There are all the ‘unofficial’ blanks to take into account as well,” eeSea analyst Destine Ozuygur told The Loadstar.

Spinelli’s 100%-owned Port Terminal Genoa currently hosts a total of seven services, according to the eeSea liner database, four of which are regional European strings; CMA CGM’s transatlantic Medcaribe service; and two Hapag-Lloyd transatlantic services – Zim’s ZCA service which Hapag-Lloyd markets as AL7 and buys 20% of the capacity through a slot purchase arrangement, and the MGX service, where it deploys six vessels with an average 4,860 teu capacity and 10% of slots are sold to Zim.

“According to new weekly data produced by supply chain intelligence company eeSea for the port of Rotterdam, congestion at the Dutch gateway and neighbouring Antwerp has declined significantly in the past few weeks.

The eeSea data provides an insight into the berthing wait times for container vessels at Rotterdam, Antwerp-Bruges, Hamburg and Bremerhaven, tracking waiting vessels and waiting days.”

“Containership owners are playing hardball with ocean carriers on fixture extensions for larger tonnage they have locked into deployment on alliance network loops.”

“With Shanghai progressively reopening, gateway terminals in western consuming nations are bracing for a tsunami of boxes to hit already congested quaysides in June as the peak season gets underway earlier than normal this year.”

“About 11% of shipments from Asia arrived on time in North America this month, down from 18% in May 2021 and 59% for the same month in 2020, according to data from eeSea, a supply-chain advisory firm.”

“Simon Sundboell, founder of eeSea, believes China lockdowns are playing a role in blank sailings. “During the early stage of lockdowns, carriers might have accepted a slightly lower utilization to keep the vessels and equipment conveyor belt moving,” he told American Shipper.”

“Hapag-Lloyd is set to grow its nascent terminal network, signing a deal with the Egyptian government and German terminal operator Eurogate to develop a new facility in the port of Damietta.”

“OA member Evergreen has confirmed it will use the CBX label for the service, while Cosco and OOCL will market it under their AWE7 and ECC3 brands, respectively.

However, business intelligence platform eeSea said it had “discovered” the CMA CGM-operated CBX service “during a routine check”, adding: “Ports of call on vessel schedules vary with each rotation and none match the flyer.””

“Container wait time, port congestion and blank-sailing fallout not as bad as feared. However, the congestion ratio was at these same levels both in July and September 2021. Simon Sundboell, founder of eeSea, told American Shipper, “It has gone up, but to me, the story is that it still isn’t dramatic in a historical context.””

“Beijing has drafted more policies to aid under pressure supply chains as China struggles to handle the omicron variant of Covid-19.”

“In March, just 7% of sea shipments from Asia to North America arrived on time, while 6% were on time for the Asia-to-Europe route, eeSea data shows.”

“Deciphering all these market signals has become increasingly complex. Spot rates appear to be pulling back, but not by all accounts. Congestion looks like it’s falling, but it might just be shifting to other ports, and declines may reverse when Shanghai lockdowns end.”

“The number of Asia-East Coast services per month was steady at around 19 in 2020. It rose through last year to 24 in December, then jumped 28 this month with 30 planned in May, according to new data provided to American Shipper by eeSea.”