Currently, the three major shipping alliances' Asia-Northern Europe routes cannot maintain normal sailing schedules, and carriers need to add three ships to each loop to maintain weekly sailings. This is the conclusion of shipping analyst Alphaliner in its latest analysis of the schedule integrity of trade routes.
Large ports in northern Europe are being overwhelmed by container overload, latest data from Alphaliner shows.
The agency investigated delays on many voyages to and from Nordic ports. According to the findings, the accumulation of containers at the terminals and the further lack of capacity for inland traffic have caused considerable delays in shipping lines between Asia and Northern Europe.
Compared with February this year and November last year, delays have worsened, with ships on the Asia-Europe routes returning to China an average of 20 days later than scheduled, Alphaliner said. shipping containers
Alphaliner said: “Most of the time is spent waiting for available berths outside the major ports in northern Europe. High yard density at Nordic container terminals and inland transport bottlenecks are exacerbating port congestion.”
It has been calculated that VLCCs currently deployed on the route take an average of 101 days to complete a full round trip, Alphaliner explained: “This means that their next round trip to China is on average 20 days later, forcing shipping The company canceled some sailings because there were no (replacement) ships available."
Through a survey of 27 voyages to and from China during the period from May 1 to 15, the results show that the shipping schedule reliability of the Ocean Alliance route is relatively the highest, with an average delay of 17 days; followed by the 2M Alliance, with an average delay of 19 days ; THE Alliance operator was the worst performer, with an average delay of 32 days. shipping containers
To illustrate the extent of delays in the route service network, Alphaliner tracked ONE's container vessel "MOL Triumph" (20170teu), which was serving THE Alliance's FE4 loop, departing from Qingdao, China on 16 February. According to its schedule, the ship is expected to arrive in Algeciras on March 25 and set sail from Northern Europe for Asia on April 7.
However, the ship did not arrive at Algeciras until April 2, and docked at the port of Rotterdam from April 12 to 15, suffered severe delays in the port of Antwerp from April 26 to May 3, and May 14 Arrive at the Port of Hamburg. MOL Triumph is finally on track to leave for Asia this week, 41 days later than originally planned.
Alphaliner said: "The time it takes to unload and load at the three largest European container ports is 36 days from arrival in Rotterdam to departure from the Port of Hamburg, and this delay cannot be compensated by sailing eastward at full speed." Ships had the longest delays "because they strictly adhered to their schedules and did not skip any ports".
A carrier responding to an Alphaliner survey said the increase in the dwell time of imported containers was due to a shortage of labour and truck drivers at Nordic ports. shipping containers
It is reported that in early April, the CEO of the Port of Rotterdam Authority said that there were 8,000 vacancies in the Port of Rotterdam alone. The port is the largest container port in Europe and currently has 8,000 vacancies across all sectors. In just a few years, vacancies have quadrupled.
Alphaliner warned that a surge in Chinese exports after the end of the Covid-19 lockdowns "may add additional pressure to the Nordic port and terminal system again this summer" as large terminals are clogged with containers and ships have to wait at anchorages.
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