Carriers are poised to bring forward peak season surcharges on the transpacific trade as cargo piles up at ports across China due to a lack of containership capacity.
Paul Tsui, Chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics (HAFFA), said most sailings to the US were hugely overbooked, resulting in the constant rollover of consignments.
Richard Owens, Asia Pacific CEO for DHL’s global customer solutions unit, told IFW that even “a company with DHL’s clout” was being forced to fight for space. “Space is going to the highest bidder,” he said. “Volumes have been increasing dramatically. “We’re among the biggest in the business, so we have the leverage to get capacity. But we’re finding it difficult to get all the capacity we need.”
Lines have been squeezing capacity on the transpacific trades in the lead-up to the annual contracting season, which is now almost complete. “Capacity is incredibly tight,” said one liner analyst. “About six months ago, about 12% of the global box fleet was idle. Now it’s 4%. “But almost all that capacity has gone into Asia-Europe services, and capacity has been kept away from transpacific services while contracts have been negotiated.”
Lines are understood to have negotiated rates of around $2000/feu, almost double those of a year ago. “It’s about back to 2008 levels,” said the liner analyst.
A number of carriers are planning to pre-empt the Transpacific Stabilisation Agreement’s guideline start date of 1 August for the introduction of a peak season surcharge of US$400. “Individual carriers are making their own decisions to possible earlier effective dates, some as early as 1 June,” said a TSA spokesman.
Source: Mike King, IFW News, 21 May 2010