Maersk and MSC canceled many Asia-Europe / Med sailings due to falling demand

As soon as the scheduled container shipping routes from China seemed to return to normal, the 2M Alliance canceled two sailings from Asia - Europe / the Mediterranean next week in the wake of the COVID- 19 began to attack demand in western countries.

Members of the 2M Alliance including Maersk and MSC announced they will cancel sailings of the Asia-Europe AE1 / Shogun service and the Asia-Mediterranean AE20 / Dragon service in next week. Services are being canceled to cope with falling demand as the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe has led to widespread isolation.

Maersk said about AE1 service when consulting customers: “Regarding COVID-19's influence in Europe, we see demand will decrease further. As a result, there will be a cancellation of AE1 service departing from the Far East Asia on week 14 and returning to Northern Europe in week 19.

Sea Intelligence Director Lars Jensen commented on Linkedin: “That's a 13% decline for Northern Europe and 22% for the Mediterranean during the week. Usually canceled trains are given 3-4 weeks notice, but now is no longer the usual time. ”

The move comes as container schedules return to normal after a large number of trips are canceled on their Asia-Europe and trans-Pacific services at the peak of the COVID outbreak. -19 in China.

David Jordan, Asia Regional Director for International Maritime Strategy, said on Seatrade's Maritime News Conference yesterday: Carriers used an important program in canceling flights: more 50% of trips on main routes to support freight rates ”.

More sailings are expected to be canceled and yesterday we reported that while container port numbers of Chinese ports are now improving after the outbreak of COVID-19, the Association China's seaport is expected to drop 5-10% in volume in the second quarter because of lower international demand due to the pandemic.

A similar picture was painted by General Manager Hapag-Lloyd - Habben Jansen - in the message COVID-19. "On the commercial side, we see that many ports in China have returned to normal operation, and scheduled trips and bookings from China are gradually increasing," he said.

“So far, the crisis has only had a limited impact on our business, but we believe there will be a significant impact of the virus on global container volumes in the coming months and if this is the case If that happens, we will have to adjust our network. ”

Phaata (Source: Seatrade Maritime News)

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