In March, the westbound transatlantic route of container traffic fell sharply, in the first quarter capacity is abundant, flight reliability improved at the same time, freight volume is slowing, freight levels from last year's record high down, steadily weakening demand will undermine the trade route in the second quarter has been strong performance.
The rise of U.S. East Coast ports is largely due to West Coast port variables-West Coast port labor contracts expired in July 2022, and shippers chose East Coast ports to avoid risks.
Despite a good start to the year, with volumes up 9 percent year-on-year in January, demand fell 5.7 percent in February, and in March, U.S. imports from northern Europe fell 16.3 percent year-on-year to 172,658 TEU, according to PIERS. 516,531 TEUs processed in the first quarter were 5.2 percent less than in the first quarter of 2022. "
Even with the recent decline in volumes, spot freight rates on the Europe-US-East route are still three times what they were before the epidemic and more than three times what they were on the Asia-US-West route. And freight rates in the Atlantic Basin, affected by soft cargo demand and excess ship capacity, continue to decline.
Spot rates on westbound Atlantic routes fell 69% year-over-year, although most of the decline occurred in early January. The current spot price is $2373/FEU, down 62% since last December 31. Since December 31 last year, the contract price has fallen by 33%, this week to 3,111 US dollars/FEU, down 38% year-on-year.
Service level improvement
Relevant freight forwarders analysis said that the transatlantic route supply and demand dynamics are being affected by the decline in U.S. imports, and port punctuality increased, exacerbated by the carriers will be ships from the weak Asian routes away from the capacity surplus.
DHL Global Freight said that although demand continues to be weak, the integrity of the timetable has also improved, and all services have room for improvement.
According to the latest relevant data, the timetable reliability of the westbound transatlantic route in February is 44.3. While still well below acceptable service levels, performance metrics are steadily improving and are significantly higher than the poor on-time rate of 14.3 percent recorded in February 2022. "
However, as reliability slowly improves, DHL also warns that as ships start to slow down steam, they need to pay attention to transit times to comply with IMO 2023 on reducing fuel consumption and carbon monoxide.
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