As the liner shipping party comes to a close, ships are cascading back from the long-haul east-west lanes to regional trades.
Latest data from consultancy Linerlytica shows that the total boxship capacity employed on the intra-Asia trades are rising again after a two-year decline.
Intra-Asia capacity peaked in early 2020 at 3m teu but fell to a low of just 2.6m teu by mid-2022 as carriers sought to maximise profits by deploying any available capacity, however small, on the transpacific and Asia-Europe tradelanes.
New Linerlytica data shows the slide has reversed with intra-Asia capacity now back to 2.8m teu with more newbuilds set to enter to the region soon.
Rates on many routes in the highly competitive intra-Asia region such as from China to Southeast Asia are already operating at below breakeven levels, Linerlytica warned in its latest weekly report.
Liners no longer able to make a profit, sounds very much like this are getting back to normal! surely the one lesson we as an industry should have learnt by now is the need for sustainable operations long term for all players in the game? of course not – much better to have a race back to the bottom…
Could we see the same from Australia and New Zealand to consolidate with Transpacific?