Weekly analysis: 21 May 2020

14 sailings have been withdrawn on the Transpacific, Transatlantic & Asia-North Europe/Mediterranean trades in week 24 (14-21 Jun 2020), bringing the total blank sailings for the first three weeks of June to 49 as opposed to 348 scheduled sailings for the same period (12%).

The trend seen in May continues in Junes’20, where the Transpacific trade remains the most affected by the reduction of scheduled sailings (55%), followed by the Asia-North Europe/Mediterranean trades (29%), and the Transatlantic (16%).

During the first three weeks of June the Alliance and 2M have the highest number of cancelled sailings (41%), followed by Ocean Alliance (12%).

Overall the proportion of sailing cancellations is expected to decrease to 12% in the first three weeks of June’20, from 19% in May. This will ease the chronic problems faced by shippers and forwarders in recent months.

Drewry urges shippers to consider the capacity and lead time effects and to select sailings based on the latest data on the incidence of cancellations by alliance and by week.