| Chinese New Year brings bad news as blank sailings soar |
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Date:2023-01-17 Readers:
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OCEAN carriers blanked more than six times more sailings on the Asia-US west coast run leading up to Chinese New Year than they did in the same period in 2019, according to Xeneta data, reports the American Journal of Transportation.
This may be the tip of the iceberg, as current data only counts blanked sailings announced before January 6, with the Chinese New Year arriving on January 22, said the benchmarking agency.
Oslo-based Xeneta, which crowdsources real-time ocean freight rate data from global shippers, noted that, in the four weeks leading up to the holiday, carriers announced the blanking of 220,489 TEU. This is a dramatic increase from the 29,796 TEU blanked in the same period of 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year.
Other leading corridors also suffered, with the Asia-North Europe trade seeing blanked sailings increase 715 per cent against 2019 figures, currently standing at 226,000 TEU, while those from the Far East to the US east coast increased 340 per cent to 140,000 TEU.
"This really does demonstrate the low level of demand gripping the industry at present," said Xeneta analyst Peter Sand. "In a normal year, we tend to see very few blanked sailings in the run up to this major Chinese holiday, as shippers stock up on their inventories. So, this is a worrying development."
Mr Sand said that the week of the holiday itself has also seen a reduction in activity, with blanked capacity on the Asia-US west coast route currently standing at 57,970 TEU, a steep increase from the 6,800 TEU blanked in 2019.
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