by Lloyd's List
14 May 2025 (Lloyd's List) - HAMBURG-based carrier Hapag-Lloyd will begin moving larger vessels onto its transpacific routes, chief executive Rolf Habben-Jansen told investors.
The carrier had opted to use smaller vessels on transpacific vessels instead of blanking sailings, as other carriers have done amid uncertain demand caused by the US-China trade war.
But following the announcement that US tariffs on Chinese goods would be paused for 90 days, Habben-Jansen said he expected to see a “surge in volume” in the next two to three months. The carrier would begin moving larger vessels back onto transpacific routes “in the next two to three weeks”, he said.
In the short term at least, Habben-Jansen said the company had seen demand increase since the announcement of the tariff pause on May 12, largely due to significant volumes of cargo being held back in China in anticipation of a deal.
China-US bookings had decreased over the past few weeks, he told investors, but that cargo would now start to flow again thanks to the agreement. Whether this surge in demand was simply more frontloading or a return to something near “normal” depended entirely on negotiations between Beijing and Washington, Habben-Jansen said.
His comments came during the company’s first-quarter results earnings call, where it posted a group profit of $469m. That’s an increase of 45% on the same period last year.
Habben-Jansen called this a “good start to the year” with “higher volumes and solid earnings”.
Aside from its financial performance, Hapag-Lloyd launched its new Gemini Cooperation with Danish carrier Maersk, which the German company said was already achieving its reliability promise of 90% or more after little over 100 days.
But this launch had come with “transitional costs”, chief financial officer Mark Frese said. While bunker costs fell with the price of oil, emission compliance is beginning to bite the German carrier, as costs associated with the EU’s emissions trading system offset any gains made by cheaper bunkers.
Looking forward, Habben-Jansen said that while the orderbook remained fairly high, he expected a significant portion of the global fleet would be scrapped before the end of the decade as it moved towards the 25-year-old mark.
He said some “temporary overcapacity here and there” would not be unexpected, depending on how global demand developed, and when and to what extent containerships returned to the Red Sea.
“We’ve just had five really good years behind us, and it would not be illogical to also see a number of quarters in the years ahead where the balance is a little bit distorted.”
