From the 11 golden week (after the end of the holiday, the off-season will officially begin) only a month's time, the shipping company stopped sailing late.
days ago, MSC said it would again suspend its independently operated Asia-Nordic Swan loop for six consecutive weeks from week 37 to week 42 starting in mid-October as demand weakens. At the same time, the 39th, 40th and 41st week Asia-Mediterranean Dragon will be canceled.
Deluli recently predicted that in view of the continuous delivery of new ship capacity and the weak peak season, shipping carriers may implement a more stringent suspension strategy to prevent further decline in freight rates, which may lead to shippers/BCOs experiencing temporary cancellations.
Just last week, MSC announced the Swan ship's rotation plan, which includes additional calls in the Nordic Felicstow, but also canceled some Asian ports.
The adjusted Swan service 36th week of the voyage will still be on September 7 by 4931TEU's "MSC Mirella" from Ningbo.
The Swan Loop was relaunched in June as an independent service outside the 2M alliance. However, MSC has struggled to justify the additional capacity and has reduced the size of vessels deployed from around 15,000TEU to a maximum of 6,700 TEU.
Consultancy firm Alphaliner said: "Weak cargo demand in July and August forced MSC to deploy smaller vessels and cancel voyages. The last three voyages of the month, the 14036 TEU 'MSC Deila', were all canceled and the vessel has been redeployed this week on the Far East-Middle East New Falcon Loop."
Perhaps more surprising is that, given the industry's resilience to date, due to weak demand, MSC decided to cancel its separate Asia-Mediterranean Dragon Ring route for three consecutive voyages.
After several weeks of creating stronger booking conditions and thus higher spot rates than the Asia to Northern Europe route, the additional capacity on this route appears to have had a negative impact.
In fact, the Ningbo Container Freight Index (NCFI) commented that the Nordic and Mediterranean routes "continue to reduce prices to attract more bookings", leading to a drop in spot freight rates on these two routes.
consulting firm Sea-Intelligence believes that shipping companies are too slow to adjust capacity ahead of China's National Day holiday. CEO Alan Murphy said: "Golden Week is only five weeks away. If the shipping company wants to announce more suspensions, there is not much time left."
According to Sea-Intelligence data, taking the trans-Pacific route as an example, the total capacity of the Golden Week trade route is currently reduced by only 3%, compared with the 2017-2019 average of 10%.
Murphy said: "In addition, due to the tepid demand in the peak season, it can be said that the blank voyages required to maintain market freight rates will have to exceed the 2017-2019 level, which will give the shipping company's suspension strategy in October Bring further pressure."
Source: Ningbo Shipping