Container lines are penalising customers, particularly spot customers who are cancelling their bookings or are failing to fulfil their bookings as committed.
The penalty charges are generally around US$100 to US$400 per container for contract clients, while for walk-in or spot customers, they are hovering at around US$1,000 per box.
Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) will start applying no-show container penalties on Indian customers from 1 June.
“In view of our ongoing efforts to enable accommodate our customer’s growing demands, it is felt the need to control and manage our bookings efficiently and to be able to manage the current constraints faced in planning & optimization of our capacities,” MSC Agencies (India) said in a customer advisory.
“In this regard, MSC wishes to implement Booking Cancellation Fees (BCF), that will be applicable for all export ‘unmaterialised’ bookings against which containers are not picked up, till the port cut-off of the vessel on which booking is issued,” the company added.
Other leading carriers to/from India are also imposing heavy fines on cancelled bookings.
There is no denying that a large scale of booking cancellations and no-shows crimp ship operators’ ability to optimise capacity and make the complex supply-demand balancing increasingly difficult.
However, with ongoing constant schedule changes and blank sailings on major routes, Indian exporters also face a daunting task of planning their shipments and eventually, end up incurring hefty penalties for not meeting their slot bookings. Sanjay Bhatia, co-founder of Mumbai-based digital freight broker Freightwalla, told Container News, “Ships sail at reduced capacity if there is a no-show of containers for loading leading to lower profitability for the shipping lines. Amidst high freight rates, the addition of no-show penalties is an additional burden. It will add to the freight forwarders and NVOCC costs, eventually passing on to the shippers.”
