Sea-Intelligence points at the plateauing of new blank sailings announcements, the slump in container volumes in North America East Coast ports in 2020-Q1, and the strength of the freight rates.
While the total number of announced blank sailings have now crossed the 500 mark, there has only been an increase of 7 over the past week. “We have now reached a plateau where carriers are maintaining their existing blank sailings, without the need for a large-scale increase in new blank sailings announcements,” Sea-Intelligence said in a release.
That said, absent a pandemic, carriers would still have blanked some sailings to manage seasonal demand fluctuations. Going into Q3, blanked capacity seems to taper off, indicating a return to the “normal” levels of blank sailings. That said, carriers normally only announce blank sailings 4-6 weeks prior to departure, and this could be just that, as per the release.
“We also find that carriers have been particularly good at maintaining freight rates, and net of fuel, spot rates are actually up 25-40% in some trades compared to 2019. Carriers achieved this through rapid and hard capacity cuts.”
