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EXCLUSIVE: Kuehne + Nagel's deliberate path to an Apex listing

Key takeaway: A minority stake sale now, with a US listing positioned as the longer-term goal - the underlying numbers point to a real, measured win for K+N shareholders as the process plays out. For much of the past year, word has circulated in freight forwarding circles about the future of Kuehne + Nagel's Chinese air and ocean unit, Apex Logistics. Early feedback from investment bankers suggested Apex itself might be sold outright. More recently, people closer to the ...

A new era for shippers, with blanked sailings now a fact of life

Container shipping has entered a new era of structurally constrained capacity, as carriers routinely withdraw 10% to 14% of scheduled space through blanked sailings, according to new analysis from Sea-Intelligence. The consultancy's review of the first half of 2026 across the four main east-west trades - Asia-North Europe, Asia-Mediterranean, Asia-US east coast and Asia-US west coast - found that, while the extreme disruption of the pandemic years had faded, blanked sailings have become a permanent feature of network management, rather than an occasional response to weak demand. Compared with the first half of 2019, carriers are increasingly relying on cancelling sailings to balance supply and demand, prompting the analyst to conclude that supply chain planners need to "recalibrate allocation and inventory strategies" around a lower baseline of available capacity. On the Asia-USEC route, blanked capacity has shot up, from 273,725 teu in the first half of 2019 to 863,396 teu in the first half of this year. Asia-Mediterranean has seen withdrawn capacity more than double, from 224,143 teu to 580,484 teu, while Asia-USWC and Asia-North Europe both recorded around 1m teu of blanked capacity in H1 26. And measured as a share of total scheduled capacity, Sea-Intelligence noted that the shift was equally pronounced. In H1 19, blanked sailings accounted for just 6%-8% of capacity across the four trades. Today, every route sees blanked voyages in double digits, with Asia-USEC the most constrained, at 14%, followed by Asia-USWC and Asia-North Europe at 11%, and Asia-Mediterranean at 10%. Sea-Intelligence argued that this represented a "fundamental change" in carrier behaviour, rather than temporary market adjustment. Perhaps most strikingly, the growth in withdrawn capacity has significantly outpaced fleet expansion. Between 2019 and 2026, scheduled capacity on the Asia-USEC trade increased 46%, but blanked capacity surged 215%; Asia-Mediterranean saw capacity grow 56%, compared to a 159% increase in withdrawn capacity; on Asia-USWC, capacity rose 16%, but blanked sailings increased 62%; and on Asia-North Europe, 20% capacity growth was against an 83% rise in withdrawn space. According to the analysis, this demonstrates that the delivery of new vessels has not translated into proportionately more cargo space for shippers, as carriers have increasingly offset fleet growth through tactical capacity withdrawals. However, while more capacity is being removed, the way carriers are doing it has become considerably more predictable. During the pandemic, blanked sailings fluctuated sharply from week to week, but Sea-Intelligence found there was less volatility across the four trades, suggesting carriers have adopted "a more disciplined and consistent" approach to capacity management. This created a market that was "restricted, but highly predictable", said the analyst, allowing shippers to plan with greater confidence provided they account for permanently less available space. It recommended supply chain planners assumed there would be structural capacity withdrawals of between 10% and 14%, depending on tradelane, and adjust their inventory policies accordingly. It also warned that shippers relying heavily on the Asia-USEC trade should consider alternative routings and larger safety stocks, given that lane's comparatively high level of withdrawn capacity. James Hookham, director of the Global Shippers Forum, told The Loadstar: "Blanked sailings are just one of the 'levers' shipping lines pull to manage capacity when they have more slots than boxes to fill them." "The effect is to reduce the number of bookable slots available to shippers at ports where the service would have called, and rates therefore typically rise - or at least don't fall as fast." Mr Hookham added that cancelled sailings were not "inherently problematic", provided carriers acted independently. "When decisions are taken in alliances of more than one carrier is the issue competition authorities need to be satisfied with," he added.

Transpacific trades in unchartered water, with tariff uncertainty at the helm

A declining sales-to-inventory ratio in the US has been one of the key reasons behind the recent volume surge and accompanying spot rate rally on the transpacific trades. However, while new data from the US Census Bureau for May shows the gap continued to widen that month, analysts at Sea-Intelligence warned that while the ratio was decreasing, inventories are on the rise, and any drop-off in US consumer spending would reverse the situation, resulting in an inventory overhang. "This is not necessarily a stable situation. It is solely the relative inventories which are declining. The absolute size keeps growing," Sea-Intelligence said. "This means it is the sales data which are important. The resilience of the US consumer is what is lowering the relative inventory sizes," it added. Surging sales in May, as well as the impending end of the universal 10% tariffs, clearly prompted US importers to ship more goods the following month, and the port of Los Angeles - often a bellwether for the country's container supply chains - reported its busiest-ever June, handling 1.002m teu, only the third time it had handled more than a million teu in a single month. "June cargo was 12% higher than a year ago, driven by strong import demand as retailers and manufacturers continued advancing shipments while navigating evolving trade policy, rising fuel costs, and global supply chain uncertainty," the port authority said. However, US forwarders are well aware that much of the recent transpacific demand has been influenced by President Trump's tariff policies - and the huge cloud of uncertainty that looms over them - and is clearly correlated with the inventory-to-sales ratios. "The next two weeks are likely to determine the direction of the transpacific market," US west coast forwarder Freight Right said last week. "If tariff uncertainty is resolved with lower or eliminated duties, import demand could quickly rebound, potentially creating an extended peak season through August and September, and pushing ocean rates higher again. However, if tariffs remain, or increase, market participants expect booking volumes to weaken further, putting additional downward pressure on freight rates." The forwarder added: "With many importers already front-loading inventory earlier, the industry may ultimately experience another year without a traditional peak season, instead seeing demand shift around trade policy developments rather than seasonal retail cycles." And if US consumers decide to stop spending it would put another dent in transpacific demand, colliding with a more benign tariff environment, Sea-Intelligence noted. "Should sales begin to decline, the relative inventories will increase instantly, leading from low inventories to excess inventories. If this happens in the coming months, the swing will occur just as we see record amounts of containerised cargo delivered into the US. "Should such a scenario unfold, this also means we will see the demand surge and associated full vessels and high freight rates rapidly replaced by overcapacity and dropping freight rates," it added.