2M Announced Golden Week Suspension Plan! Shippers In Urgent Need Of Transport Capacity Are In Trouble Again

Container shipping companies have announced that they will suspend four voyages during the golden week, leaving shippers who are still struggling to get their goods out of Asia "at a loss.".

2m is the first shipping alliance to announce its suspension during China's National Day golden week, with scheduled cargo on the cancelled flights, while export ships from Asia are still struggling to find capacity, which puts some shippers in a dilemma.

The 2m alliance partners Maersk and MSC have cancelled four Eurasia links scheduled for 39 and 40 weeks, reducing the capacity of the route by about 70000 TEUs.

According to a MSc report, 2m will cancel Griffin / ae55 and lion / ae6 services in the last week of September, followed by albatross / AE5 and lion / ae6 services. The reason for this, MSC said, was "to improve the reliability of the shipping schedule.".

A British freight forwarder who ordered one of the flights in September said he was "shocked" by the move. "We were suddenly informed in the morning and for the past few hours we have been trying to figure out what's going on with the bookings we've confirmed," he said, adding that there seemed to be "some confusion" about other alternatives and was still waiting for a response. "It seems to surprise everyone, including partners," he added

In its advisory report, MSC said shippers could "book as usual as we are arranging contingency plans for alternative services".

It is normal for shipping companies to suspend shipping around the golden week holiday, as demand has traditionally eased after the peak of the main peak season. However, according to a shipping company source recently, "this year's backlog of orders may keep ships waiting until October.".

So far, Maersk has not officially confirmed the news, although it announced some route changes on the 13th to reflect the reduction of voyages due to port congestion and delay.

"Recently, there has been unprecedented severe port congestion around the world, resulting in cumulative delays on multiple routes across the Asia to Nordic network," Maersk said

"This situation is due to the rapid increase in demand and measures taken at the port and supply chain to combat the epidemic. These cumulative delays are currently creating a gap in shipping schedules and leading to multiple Asian flights departing more than seven days apart," the company added.

Maersk said it had decided to adjust the voyages of MSC Istanbul in week 42 and MSc Bettina in week 43 to match the actual departure week of vessels and services.

In fact, on many routes, "slidings" has generally replaced "blankings". Due to the chain reaction of severe port congestion, the demand is still very high, and many carriers' operating departments believe that the reliability of the shipping schedule is "impossible" to guarantee.

A few days ago, a NVOCC made a more ironic comment, saying that the cancellation of an order "is more to ensure a high level of spot freight than to ensure the integrity of the shipping schedule". "It seems strange that [Others] are going to stop shipping after some shipping companies said last week that they would stop raising freight rates," he said