Capacity conundrum for shippers as carriers unveil post-Golden Week blanks
With China's Golden Week holiday under way and factories closed, supply chain planners' attention has shifted to calculating shipping capacity out of Asia once Chinese workers return and container flows gear up again.
According to Drewry's Cancelled Sailings tracker, 39 blanked sailings have been announced in the period from Week 41 (5-11 October) to Week 45 (2-8 November) across three deepsea east-west trades - the transpacific, transatlantic and Asia-Europe - 5% of the 710 scheduled voyages.
Half of the blanks will be on the transpacific, a third on Asia-Europe, and the remainder on the transatlantic.
However, while carrier capacity management has been blamed for the persistently strong transpacific container spot freight rates over he past two months, the scale of the blanks customers currently face - both in terms of voyages and overall slot capacity - is actually on the low side, in comparison with post-Covid norms.
"The data for blank sailings, shows that even though they still certainly do happen, the relative amount of capacity being blanked is actually quite low for the post-pandemic era," analysts at Sea-Intelligence Consulting wrote this week.
"This is not to disparage shippers that have seen supply chains impacted by blanked sailings, but as an overall market status, reliability related to whether or not services are blanked is quite low presently."
Its analysis of blanked sailings on the transpacific and Asia-Europe trades, which takes January 2020 as its starting point, shows that on average around 10% of Asia-US west coast sailings are blanked in any given period, and "tactically, right now, the level of blank sailings is quite low".
It found a similar number of blankings on the Asia-US east coast trade but added: "There is a slight hint of a downwards trend over the past two years, indicating a lower propensity for blank sailings amongst the carriers."
Meanwhile, the Asia-North Europe trade is, as usual at the end of September, seeing its lowest level of blanking since the beginning of the pandemic, while the Asia-Mediterranean trade is also nearing historic lows.
For carriers, blankings are a demand response function, but one Europe forwarder told The Loadstar that "bookings for post-Golden Week seem steady so far", while some pre-holiday shipments were expected to be rolled, "as we had no restrictions on bookings".
It has left some forwarders scratching their heads, particularly as Asia-Europe carriers last began announcing FAK (freight all kinds) spot rate hikes in the second half of this month.
One said: "We're still receiving reductions on FAK rates for the first half of October, which make the rate increases [around $1,000 per 40ft] I've seen for the second half, confusing. If carriers have enough cargo for a roll pool to increase rates, then why reduce rates for sailings in the first half?"
Drewry warned shippers that while most scheduled services were expected to sail this month, "the distribution of blank sailings across trades remains important".
It added: "With demand patterns likely to shift after Golden Week, attention should remain on where carriers make further capacity adjustments, and how these changes affect space availability and schedules.
"This will be particularly relevant on Asia-Europe/Med, where the return of services to the Suez route is adding capacity to the trade, while comparatively limited cancellations on the transpacific could keep space availability firmer."
