SEA-INTELLIGENCE NOTES “SHARP” GOLDEN WEEK CAPACITY REDUCTIONS

Shipping lines are blanking sailings to match supply with the lower demand ahead of the upcoming Golden Week holiday in Asia in early October, often marked by closed factories and a decline in container demand to and from the region.

 

Danish maritime data analysis company Sea-Intelligence noted, however, that when the firm initially looked at the 2023 Golden Week blanked capacity — two weeks ago — the carriers had not scheduled blank sailings even close to what was required to match the blanked percentages of pre-pandemic years.

 

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[Source: Sea-Intelligence]

"Fast forward 2 weeks to this week, and 29 additional blank sailings have been scheduled on the Transpacific, and 18 more on Asia-Europe," the Sea-Intelligence report said.

 

It added that scheduled capacity reductions on Asia-North America West Coast went from 3.7% to 14.1%, from 2.2% to 16.1% on Asia-North America East Coast, from 6.8% to 19.9% on Asia-North Europe, and from 7.7% to 21.0% on Asia-Mediterranean.

 

"This means that carriers are now on track to blank capacity in line with both 2019 and the 2017-2019 average," commented Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.