Blank sailings on Asia-North Europe service increase - Sea-Intelligence Report

Blank sailings on Asia-North Europe route increase

Danish marine data analytics company, Sea-Intelligence, used data from its Blank Sailings Tracker system to track recent changes to the number of blank sailings on the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe route.

Starting in the first week of 2022, Sea-Intelligence calculated the number of blank sailings expected for the next eight weeks.

For the following week, analysts calculated the number of blank sailings expected over the same eight-week period, then calculated the change from week one to week two.

"The result of this is very volatile, as vessels can slide back and forth between weeks," commented the analysts, who, for this reason, took a two-week rolling average.

In the figure below, we can see that there is a growing trend across the Asia-North Europe region, indicating that carriers are increasing blank sailings on this route.

Source: Sea-Intelligence.com, Sunday Spotlight, issue 562

Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, said: “While the number itself appears relatively low, we need to keep in mind that the baseline number of regularly scheduled services per week is currently 19."

He adds, "When we perform the same analysis on Asia-Mediterranean, we see quite the opposite. There was an increasing trend in March 2022, which reversed in the following weeks, and now there is a behaviour towards no additional blanking activity."

Murphy concludes that "this is perhaps a reason why the rate levels have held up more firmly on Asia-Mediterranean than on Asia-North Europe."

On the Asia-North America West Coast service, there was a spike at the start of the year due to the Lunar New Year, but in recent weeks, weekly carrier changes have remained fairly stable.

“We see a similar case on Asia-North America East Coast, with the only difference that the spike came a little later than on Asia-North America West Coast,” commented Murphy. He further commented: "Given what we see on Asia-North Europe, it is perhaps indicative of carriers’ concerns about vessel utilization on that trade lane."

Source: Phaata.com (According to Sea-Intelligence.com | ContainerNews)

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