With our comprehensive portfolio of ocean freight forwarding services around the globe, the U-Freight Group notes that in its latest newsletter, Alphaliner says that ocean carriers are being forced to make difficult choices as there are not enough container ships to fully staff all regular liner services.

The maritime advisor reports that fourteen deep sea liner services are currently missing half (or more) of the number of ships required to guarantee a fixed weekly sailing frequency.

Five loops are even missing all of their ships and could be considered as ‘temporarily suspended’.

The consequences for shippers are not as bad as it seems at first sight. The carriers provide alternatives by adding extra ad hoc calls on other loops or deploying numerous ships with very flexible routings. This increased flexibility however often comes at the expense of regularity.

Alphaliner currently counts 28 x 1,100 – 14,000 teu ships in off-schedule extra voyages between the Far East and the US West Coast, representing a total capacity of 117,500 teu.

Another 24 units of 1,700 – 11,900 teu (152,600 teu) are active as ’extra sailers’ between the Far East and the US East Coast.

Alphaliner adds that the biggest ‘ghost’ service without any ship assigned is the OCEAN Alliance Far East – Middle East ‘MEA3’ service.

The Far East – Arab Gulf & Red Sea was one of the first trade lanes affected by the carriers’ desire to transfer more ships to the lucrative Transpacific or Asia – Europe trades.

You can find more information about the U-Freight Group’s ocean freight services on our website, or by speaking to your usual contact in our company.