Chile Freight Forwarding Services
Air & Sea Freight Between Chile and the UK

Record rates mask 'dire situation' for hauliers as costs outstrip earnings

Record European road freight rates are masking a "dire situation" for hauliers, with soaring fuel costs eroding margins and operators struggling to pass increases on to shippers, according to industry bodies. The Q3 European Road Freight Rate Benchmark, published yesterday by IRU, Upply and Transport Intelligence (Ti), showed contract rates reaching a record 148.9 index points in Q3 2026, up 14.6 points year on year, while spot rates hit 147.6 points, up 12.9 points. However, IRU told The Loadstar that rising freight rates were not translating into improved profitability, with operating costs increasing substantially faster than the prices carriers could charge. In France, operating costs rose approximately 14% between January and September with contract rates increasing just 7%. By March, costs had already climbed 8%, while freight rates were still falling. "Higher freight rates are masking a dire situation for operators, as shippers try to mitigate a raise they haven't yet seen in full," IRU said. Ti said the increases were "overwhelmingly a supply-side story", driven principally by diesel rather than stronger demand. EU diesel averaged €2.05 per litre in Q3, up 32% year on year, peaking at €2.27 on 27 September. "The cost evidence is unambiguous," Ti told The Loadstar. "The CNR long-haul cost index rose 13.2% year on year in September, but strip diesel out and the increase is 1.3%. "Almost the whole cost rise is fuel, so the rate rise is largely carriers recovering a bill they have already paid." Ti added that tolls had risen 7% year on year, while semi-trailer equipment and maintenance costs increased 3.5% and 2.4%, respectively. It said contract rates had outpaced spot rates throughout Q3, suggesting some cost recovery through contract renewals, although anecdotal evidence indicated carriers were shouldering more increases in Q4. The Road Haulage Association (RHA) said UK operators were experiencing similar pressures, with more than eight in ten businesses reporting declining margins. "Fuel is about a third of the cost of running a truck, and firms are paying an extra £385 a week per vehicle. On margins of around two per cent, there is very little left to absorb that," an RHA spokesperson told The Loadstar. Its fuel survey found just one in ten operators could pass on fuel cost increases, with the remainder absorbing some or all of the additional expenditure. "On a fixed-rate contract there is no way to recover costs until the terms are renegotiated. And the fuel bill has to be paid long before the customer's invoice is," the RHA added. Meanwhile, concerns are growing that weakening haulage capacity could trigger further rate increases when demand recovers. Ti said European operator numbers were stagnating or declining in several markets, largely because fewer businesses were entering the industry rather than widespread failures. "Capacity is leaving through lack of replacement rather than mass failure, which is slower and harder to reverse," it warned. Heavy truck registrations reached approximately 60,100 in Q3, but annual growth slowed to 7% from 8.4% in June, suggesting operators were deferring fleet renewals. Driver shortages are compounding the problem, with around 502,000 European truck driver positions unfilled, according to IRU figures cited by Ti. "If demand does rebound in 2027, every route to adding capacity is slow, and with costs expected to remain high, a sharp price response is the likely result," Ti warned. IRU similarly expects rates to continue rising as carriers attempt to recover operating costs. The RHA, meanwhile, called for a 15p-per-litre fuel rebate for essential users, arguing it would provide vital relief to struggling UK hauliers.

Cargo boycott threat by Indian brokers over empty-box fee hikes

A new storm of stakeholder disputes, and potential operational disruption, is brewing across Indian ports over policy changes by container lines on empty-container handling and associated depot charges. The loading and unloading of empty boxes at yards is the flashpoint for discontent and disagreement between supply chain intermediaries and carriers. Maersk, for example, has substantially raised its lift-on/lift-off (lo-lo) charges for empties moving via Mundra, India's busiest container port and the primary gateway for the hinterlands around Delhi. The revision, implemented from 1 November, effectively more than doubled the rates shippers had been charged, from $23 to $51 per 20ft empty box, and from $31 to $67 per 40ft, plus local taxes. "Customers are requested to take notice of this change and make the necessary arrangements to ensure smooth container pick-up and drop-off operations," Maersk told customers. Additionally, the carrier advised them to settle the charges directly with nominated depot service providers, an issue that had already become contentious at Chennai port. Now the controversy is becoming industry-wide, as sources expect other carriers to issue similar trade notices for their 'empty' operations at Mundra. Ondeed, one liner source told The Loadstar: "We are discussing the matter." At Chennai, MSC seems to be facing the brunt of a trade pushback against the practice of routing empty tariff collections through third-party depot vendors, which cargo agents claim opens the market to an unregulated environment. "MSC has taken the lead in implementing this collection practice in Chennai, following which other shipping lines have initiated similar measures," the Chennai Customs Brokers Association (CCBA) noted. The CCBA claimed the policy shift was fraught with "serious economic and operational implications for cargo agents", as it had seen third-party vendors keep inflating tariffs once taken over. "Allowing third-party vendors to collect additional charges without adequate transparency or accountability would create an open-ended financial burden on the export/import trade, particularly customs brokers," it said. The association also claimed its member agents - an integral part of India's supply chains - were being increasingly 'caught in the middle', with exporters and importers refusing to reimburse the add-ons that had found their way onto final customer bills. Indeed, the CCBA has threatened to boycott MSC shipments if the new practice is not reversed by 15 November, and told The Loadstar: "Our association will follow the same stance in the case of other shipping lines seeking similar depot arrangements." According to sources, some carriers serving JNPA (Nhava Sheva) have also switched to the practice of permitting nominated yards to collect lo-lo charges directly from shippers, despite strong resistance from the cargo-handling community. "Any logistics cost increase ultimately goes straight down to the shipper, making it difficult to explain, or sort out," one forwarder said. "Intermediaries add price mark-ups, an area Indian logistics policymakers have been trying to streamline through reforms," added one industry observer.

Hapag's ASX will reverse December Asia-ECSA capacity squeeze

On the question of whether the ASX replaces the AS3, the rotations point the other way. Together they give Hapag-Lloyd two weekly sailings into the same four Brazilian gateways, each fed from a different Chinese catchment - imitating how CMA CGM and its Ocean Alliance partners pair SEAS 2 and SEAS A. Add the slots Hapag-Lloyd buys on Maersk's ASAS, which still calls Buenos Aires and Montevideo direct, and the Hamburg-based line covers the trade three ways. However, we cannot exclude that ASX could serve as a policy insurance, should Hapag and Zim part ways on their joint AS3/ZFS. Read the rotation, not the press release ASX runs a port rotation of Qingdao-Ningbo-Shekou-Tanjung Pelepas-Santos-Itajaí-Rio Grande-Paranaguá-Santos-Singapore. Five choices stand out. It gathers westbound cargo at Tanjung Pelepas, while every rival on the trade uses Singapore. The two are 30 miles apart and interchangeable for a customer's box, so this is not about the shipper; it is about which network ASX plugs into - which matters for a different reason, outlined below. It skips Shanghai. ASX is the only Asia-ECSA service that does not call at the largest container port on the planet. This leads towards an engineered network to work with Gemini's shuttles. It calls at Itajaí before Paranaguá. Most services run Santos, then Paranaguá. Hapag-Lloyd puts Santa Catarina second on discharge and pushes Paranaguá to fourth, so Paranaguá imports arrive later while its exports, loaded late in the sweep, keep a fast run to Asia. It places Rio Grande in the middle, not at an end. Rio Grande is usually first or last, marking it as an import or an export port. Here it is the turn of the loop and the single feeder pivot for Montevideo and Buenos Aires, so it has to sit mid-string to connect the River Plate both ways. And it reaches north to Qingdao, while not having Hong Kong on the backhaul, and imports will be left to a Singapore relay. What its presence really tells us, is that ASX & AS3 are meant to stay side by side, offering a complete portfolio of corridors to Hapag customers. The tight market has an expiry date For shippers, the timing matters more than the branding. December removes the Maersk-CMA CGM ASAS2 loop and, by my count, nominal weekly capacity from Asia falls by about 6%. In April, MSC replaces Hapag-Lloyd's five ships on Ipanema with its own, and Hapag-Lloyd adds a whole new loop. At ship sizes like AS3's, that is in the order of 10,000 teu a week of extra capacity, and enough to reverse December's cut. Therefore, shippers signing annual contracts this winter should not price December's tighter market as permanent. By the second quarter next year, the Asia-east coast South America trade will be split between at least four groups that each control their own ships: the Ocean Alliance members; MSC with ONE; Maersk; and Hapag-Lloyd with or without Zim. That is a more competitive trade than the one these partnerships created, and it arrives just as contracts signed during the squeeze start to kick in.