According to Sea Intelligence's latest edition of their Sunday Spotlight, the outlook of blank sailings during the next ten weeks shows that major shipping companies expect a strong peak season in 2024 on the major routes.
Sea Intelligence analyzed blank sailings over the past six weeks and compared them with the corresponding period in previous years. Additionally, the already announced blank sailings for the upcoming weeks have been examined to draw comparisons with the same period from the previous years.
One trend is evident throughout the analysis: Compared to the pre-pandemic average, the number of blank sailings in 2024 is much higher than the pre-pandemic average. Traditionally, there has been a sharp increase in blank sailings around Chinese New Year, followed by a gradual increase in capacity leading up to Golden Week in October.
Asia-North America
During the past six weeks of 2024, 8.8% of the total deployed capacity on the Asia-North America West Coast trade lane carriers was cancelled. This cancellation rate is considerably lower than during the pandemic years of 2021 to 2023, when between 17.5% and 24% of the capacity was blanked.
So far, in 2024, the blanked capacity is significantly higher than the pre-pandemic average of 1.8% (2016-2019). For the upcoming weeks (29 - 39), carriers have already announced 3.9% for 2024.
On the Asia-North America East Coast, blanked capacity was 11.1% in the last six weeks, approximately three percentage points higher than in 2023. However, compared to the pre-pandemic average of 0.9%, it remains relatively high in 2024.
Looking ahead to the next 11 weeks, the trend changes because a decrease to 4.1% is visible. Overall, in 2024, blanked capacity will be significantly lower than in 2021-2023, roughly in line with 2020, and higher than the pre-pandemic average.
Asia-North Europe
Asia-North Europe, one of the two major East/West trade lanes, has been directly impacted by the Red Sea crisis and saw carriers blanking 9.7% of the total capacity in the past six weeks.
Although this is lower than the pandemic years of 2022-2023, it is still higher than the average of 2020 and 2021.
The longer transit times caused by the Red Sea crisis have absorbed additional capacity in 2024, similar to demand growth. Fortunately, port congestion is not as severe as during the pandemic. So for the upcoming 11 weeks, the announced blanked capacity is 5.9%.
Asia-Mediterranean
Over the past six weeks, blanked capacity of 6% on the Asia-Mediterranean trade lane has exceeded the pre-pandemic average of 2.3%. Looking ahead, the current blanked capacity is 7.5%.
Notably, the percentages for 2024 are considerably lower than in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Back then, blank sailings ranged between 8.2% and 18.7% (weeks 23 and 28) and even reached 19.1% during the peak season of 2020.
Analysing the carriers' current blank sailings program and planned capacity deployment for the remainder of the peak season (weeks 29-39), a strong peak season for Asia-North America West Coast and Asia-North Europe can be expected.
This optimism stems from relatively low blank sailing percentages and significant capacity growth.
