Container lines

While the industry has focused on areas such as tracking and quoting, advancements in booking technology portend new potential for digitizing containerized supply chains.

Electronic booking standards across ocean carriers would make it easier for shippers and forwarders to do business with a range of capacity providers, says the Digital Container Shipping Association.

Forwarders cited two plausible factors for the price move — excess capacity pumped into the market and a moderation in cargo booking demand due to improved shipper inventory levels.

An ongoing wage dispute between the ver.di union and port employers is continuing to disrupt operations at some of the busiest container shipping hubs in North Europe.

Shippers and forwarders now have a range of options to book with ocean carriers, who themselves have developed direct online portals to lure smaller ocean freight buyers.

Ocean carriers calling at European ports are having to navigate an increasingly complex and costly decarbonization landscape.

An appellate court ruled the US Federal Maritime Commission erred when it solely applied its “incentive principle” to a detention case involving container carrier Evergreen Line.

Shippers and carriers are better prepared to deal with large-scale disruptions following the supply chain chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to CEVA Logistics CEO Mathieu Friedberg.

NVO sources who spoke with the Journal of Commerce noted that carriers active on the regional trade lane have pulled tonnage out of the short-haul market for redeployment to China-centric longer-distance services.

The CMA CGM subsidiary is centralizing its organizational structure following a string of high-profile and expensive acquisitions, making use of its critical size in key product sectors.

It was only when assets stopped circulating that ocean carrier profits took off, thanks to containers stranded on idle ships that lined up outside of congested ports during the worst of the pandemic disruption.

The forwarder’s enormous staff count and a lack of investment in logistics infrastructure contributed to the carrier dropping out, a source told the Journal of Commerce.

As the crisis in the Red Sea hits seven months with no end in sight, the container shipping market has reached a point where stakeholders need to seriously consider their plan B in case the current reality persists for several more years, writes Lars Jensen.

The carrier next week will roll out a premium express service from central China to complement the South China express service it relaunched late last year as spot rates continue to move higher.

The daily number of vessel transits through the critical waterway is set to return to normal levels after easing of a drought that cut transits in half last year.

Progress on the industry’s goal of fully moving to electronic bills of lading by 2030 has been slow, but more carriers are signing with vendors to enable the migration.

After seeking their own paths on the India-US East Coast trade, the carriers have put an end to their long-time slot-swapping on India-North Europe routes, industry sources told the Journal of Commerce.

An early start to the peak seasons on the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trades has left shippers fighting for space with no sign of a respite from soaring rates and deteriorating service levels.

The Port of Charleston and the International Longshoremen’s Association are ending a long-running fight over crane jobs at the terminal by allowing operators to decide whether to join the union.

US exporters face unexpected costs and delays due to changes in dates for dropping off containers, which the FMC hopes to address with more consistent data.

The current tight capacity in the container shipping market is helping to shine a light on the mistake some shippers make when playing hardball in contract negotiations with carriers, writes an industry veteran and consultant.

Sources are reporting a “sold-out window” for spot bookings on most services connecting the two trade lanes through a large part of July.

The capacity cuts come as ocean bookings in the eastbound trans-Pacific are climbing sharply because US-based importers who had planned to ship their merchandise during the traditional August-through-October peak season are scrambling to book space early.

The carrier executive said the disruption to shipping schedules caused by vessel diversions around southern Africa has created a “chaotic situation” due to blank sailings, port congestion and skipped vessel calls, especially in Southeast Asia.

Cargo flow is improving through Singapore and major Chinese ports, but India’s largest container gateway, Mundra, is straining under rising transshipment volumes, ocean carriers and forwarders say.

Houthi rebels have little incentive to stop attacks even if there is a Gaza-Israel ceasefire, there’s no US appetite to root them out, and a political solution is highly unlikely, according to geopolitical analysts.

With backing from the South Korea government, HMM is deploying more ships to help the country’s exporters weather soaring container rates amid heightened demand for their goods.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. is increasing capacity between Asia and the West Coast of Mexico amid surging foreign direct investment by China into Mexico.

How do you build a robust, resilient system in the face of operational and geopolitical disruptions that throw conventional container shipping networks into disarray?

Local forwarders say the rate hikes are partly due to worsening delays at key ports in Brazil, with ongoing construction work closing part of Navegantes and vessel diversions from that port overwhelming other gateways.

Hapag-Lloyd will be withdrawing from the Indamex service it has operated in conjunction with CMA CGM for decades and will kick off a standalone loop on the route in early August.

The pointed sentiments expressed recently by the ILA are a departure from the low-key, business-like approach to prior negotiations along the East and Gulf coasts, and thus unfamiliar to shippers trying to weigh the risks of labor strife, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Forwarder sources believe that the upcoming weeks could prove challenging for bookings to the US East Coast, given that ONE’s WIN service will have two blank sailings out of India in July.

The longer transits around southern Africa, port congestion at key hubs in Asia and unseasonally strong demand have absorbed all the capacity carriers threw into the major east-west trade lanes early this year.

With vessel space from Asia to the US at a premium amid an early peak season, ocean carriers have been largely successful in implementing the surcharges in June, and some will keep pushing their luck in July.

Measures to mitigate the impact of a potential labor disruption at US East and Gulf coast ports could cause the trans-Atlantic market to follow the same path as the heavily disrupted trades out of Asia.

The ocean carrier joins rivals Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd — all investors in NYSHEX — in using the contract management platform.

Summer strikes have begun in Europe with a series of walkouts causing significant disruption across the main German and French container ports.

Large Indian industrial importers, relying heavily on China for input products, have complained that despite shelling out exorbitantly high freight rates, vessel space at load ports continues to be problematic.

The International Longshoremen’s Association cited the “massive profits” ocean carriers have booked in recent years to highlight the wage proposal it plans to push in contract talks with employers.