Vessel capacity analysis on the Mediterranean to North America East Coast trade lane shows a sharp divergence between average and median vessel sizes, reports Copenhagen's Sea-Intelligence. The change is driven by a small number of new, larger ships rather than a broad structural shift.
Sea-Intelligence plotted all vessels deployed on the trade since 2012, revealing a dense cluster of ships ranging from 800 TEU to an historical ceiling of about 9,600 TEU.
In 2025, a new cluster of vessels in the 13,000-15,000+ TEU range emerged. Two of these were deployed by MSC on its EMUSA service, though the line continues to use 8,000-9,000 TEU ships.
The remainder were deployed by MSC on its Dragon service, marking the first consistent use of vessels of this size on the trade.
The strategy has created a two-tiered vessel size structure, with implications for North American East Coast terminals. Ports must now handle scheduled calls from much larger ships, resulting in significantly higher container exchanges per call.
https://www.shippingazette.com/news?news_id=9251100000669
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