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Overseas situation and forecast

Lack of containers, overbooked ships, high rates, blank sailings, and the historically lowest delivery precision ever - this sums up the issues of today's overseas situation. 

Delays and on-time deliveries

  • only 24% of cargo ships are on time from Asia to Europe
  • only 30% of cargo ships are on time from Europe to Asia or the US
  • in addition, the actual journey takes longer - for global trades 6 days longer on average

    • from Asia to Europe approx 8 days longer

    • from Europe to Aisa or the US, approx 6 days longer
       

So do shipping companies earn a huge profit from this situation? Not really ...

Chartering a cargo ship has increased by more than 50% - and almost half of all shipping lines charter their fleet, accompanied with increases in longer sailings, so profit stays almost the same for the shipping lines.

Why blank sailings?

Blank sailingSkip harbours
Shipping lines decide to skip a harbour or more due to delays and container deficit
is non-profit for the shipping lines. This is not desirable, but neither is an off-scheduled situation with huge delays and unpredictability.

Therefore, shipping lines have introduced blank sailings where they might have to skip some ports to get back on schedule.

The forecast is a lot of blank sailings in the weeks to come.

Rates for Asia

Huge demand from the market in general, combined with lack of both containers and space on the cargoships, extended duration of the sailings, higher costs for chartering, and blank sailings – the result is an all-time high cost for importing of goods.

We foresee that the rates will increase and stay at a high level throughout Q3.  

Covid-19, Coronavirus

We still see ports being challenged with local outbreaks of Coronavirus, forced to either lockdown completely or to operate with less capacity. Lately, the port of Yantian experiences a lockdown - creating delays of 2-4 days. 

Other freight alternatives

Both rail freight and air freight might be good solutions for transporting your goods, though they are also very popular these days.

Rail freight is fully booked during summer, but we are looking into adding routes to get more space for goods.