Port congestion prompts carriers to drop a quarter of all North European calls from Asia – Europe deepsea loops
The 18 Asia – North Europe loops operated by the three mega alliances have skipped a total of 383 port calls in North Europe over the past five months due to severe port congestion, new data from Alphaliner shows. The figure represents nearly a quarter of all scheduled calls in the period.
The addition of 77 inducement calls has only partly compensated for these massive port omissions.
Felixstowe in the UK has been the worst hit by the temporary schedule changes and ad hoc adjustments with 32.5% less calls over the past five months. Felixstowe is primarily used by 2M. The weekly number of 2M calls was reduced to three in October.
Felixstowe has been the worst hit
The top three ports, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg, also saw a reduction of between 20.2% to 30.3% of planned calls.
