Blanked Sailings Now Affect TransAtlantic Routes

For some time, we have witnessed carriers blank sailings on Asian routes to control capacity levels during periods of low demand, and now this practice has started to impact TransAtlantic routes.

During the past few weeks, a few east and westbound voyages have been cancelled on services between Europe and North America, and potentially more could follow.

The latest blanked sailing was a 2M Alliance departure from Bremerhaven, which was due to depart on September 15th and was cancelled with just a week’s notice.

Traditionally speaking, the TransAtlantic market is far less volatile than Asian routes and less likely to be impacted by the swings in supply and demand or peak and off-peak seasons.

However, the cost of living climate, and a falloff in demand for global shipping, has led to volumes dropping on the TransAtlantic trade and carriers are starting to take action to avoid over capacity.

According to reports, products such as automotive, chemicals and pharma remain reasonably stable, but lumber, paper and many semi-finished products are down by 30%.

The team at Atlantic Pacific are monitoring developments closely.