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Blanked sailings on the rise, with container spot rates on a gentle decline

Container spot freight rates on the transpacific and Asia-Europe trades saw another week of gentle declines amid reduced demand post-peak season, while Asia-Europe carriers and their customers begin annual contract negotiations in earnest. This week's World Container Index (WCI) from Drewry saw spot rates on its Shanghai-Rotterdam leg decline 3% week on week, to $3,504 per 40ft, while pricing on the Shanghai-Genoa route remained flat for the third week in a row, at $4,168 per 40ft. A new round of FAK (freight all kinds) levels are set to be applied next week, although they are modest in ambition and generally range from $4,500-$5,000 per 40ft on Asia-North Europe shipments, and between $5,500-$6,600 per 40ft on Asia-Mediterranean. They are largely around the level carriers have been targeting for the past couple of months. However, they are also being accompanied by increased number of blanked sailings - according to Drewry's Container Capacity Insight, eight are scheduled for next week, compared with the five this week. The key aspect to this is that carriers and their customers are positioning for next year, with carriers keen to get spot rates up as much as they can to act as a guide for contract rates, and shippers are, understandably, eager for them to be suppressed after enduring a wild ride during much of 2026. "Those conversations are starting more or less as we speak," Hapag-Lloyd chief executive Rolf Habben Jansen told analysts at the line's third-quarters earnings call this week. "As is usual at this time of year, not everybody sees the market the same - I think when one looks at contracts that will be closed for 2027, they will be at a higher level than what we have seen in 2026. "Also, when you take out the bunker component, that alone will push rates up, of course. But I think we will also see a fairly significant net increase of freight rates going into 2027," he added. Much will therefore depend on the stickiness of pre-Chinese New Year peak season surcharges (PSSs) that are on their way for the beginning of December. Maersk has announced a $1,000 per 40ft PSS on Asia-North Europe shipments from 1 December, while CMA CGM is going earlier, with a $1,600 per 40ft PSS for Asia-Mediterranean shipments due on 25 November. While some Loadstar sources expressed surprise at the early timing, given that the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday begins on 6 February, Vespucci Maritime founder Lars Jensen noted it was probably appropriate, given that peak pre-CNY demand will occupy most of January. On the transpacific trades, rates have finally began to properly descend after remaining elevated throughout October. The WCI's Shanghai-Los Angeles route was down 2% on the previous week, to end at $7,416 per 40ft, while its Shanghai-New York leg declined 3%, to $9,020 per 40ft container, its lowest since August. However, forwarders on the trade said widespread discounts had been available this week, and virtually no cargo had been booked at published rate levels. "Instead, actual moving rates are dictated by carrier promotional discounts and volume-based pricing, as space across Asian origin ports continues to open up," said US west coast forwarder Freight Right. Carriers have responded to the slowdown in demand with more blanked sailings - eight transpacific voyages will be blanked next week, compared with four this week, according to Drewry - and Freight Right said shippers should be aware that the cheapest spot rates could come with poor reliability for the remainder of the year. "Ocean freight activity is expected to slow further through late November and December, supporting a broadly-stable-to-gradually-softer rate outlook. "Improved space availability should give importers more booking flexibility, although the lowest price may come with greater schedule uncertainty," it said.

Wave of larger newbuild box ships a threat to the panamax fleet

The coming influx of larger containerships could render ageing panamax vessels commercially obsolete by 2030, while carriers' efforts to renew smaller fleets threaten further capacity displacement. Jonathan Roach, analyst at Braemar, told The Loadstar the newbuilding programme was creating a substantial mismatch between vessels entering service and those approaching retirement. He identified the 4,000-7,499 teu segment as particularly vulnerable, with 428 vessels aged at least 20 years old against just 283 ships on order. As larger newbuildings enter service, existing vessels could be cascaded into trades traditionally served by smaller ships, intensifying competition for employment. Mr Roach said: "The ageing fleet is concentrated in the sub-panamax segment, while the orderbook is heavily skewed towards larger ships." He warned that traditional panamax and post-panamax vessels could become increasingly squeezed, "potentially becoming obsolete by 2030". However, new analysis from Alphaliner suggests fleet renewal will also reshape the smaller vessel segments. Mael Pape-Leostic, shipping analyst at Alphaliner, told The Loadstar the orderbook remained heavily weighted towards large containerships destined for mainline services. But he noted a significant increase in orders for vessels of less that 6,000 teu since mid-2025, largely intended to replace ageing tonnage. Mr Pape-Leostic said: "In our view, this renewal will not be on a like-for-like basis," and explained that carriers historically deploying vessels below 1,000 teu, could replace them with ships of 1,200 teu or even 1,800 teu. Alphaliner's fleet data illustrates the scale of the change. Its figures show 526 vessels of less than 1,000 teu are aged at least 20 years old, compared with just 67 ships of that size on order. Meanwhile, the 1,500-1,999 teu segment has 248 ships on order, compared with 196 vessels aged at least 20 years. The figures suggest that the replacment of older vessels with larger ships could increase the global fleet's carrying capacity without an increase in vessel numbers. Alphaliner's data also shows the largest newbuildings dominating capacity additions, with 291 ships of at least 18,000 teu on order, representing 6.06m teu. Sea-Intelligence forecasts average quarterly deliveries of 1m teu between 2027 and 2030, substantially exceeding recent historical levels. Mr Roach said: "This is not simply a story of fleet growth. It is a story of fleet displacement... The influx of larger newbuildings will trigger further cascading, pushing bigger ships into trades currently served by smaller vessels. "Of course, larger ships cannot serve every trade, so investment in smaller vessels will continue. But the direction of travel is clear - the global fleet is getting bigger, while parts of the existing mid-sized fleet risk being left behind." The changing fleet composition could also intensify pressure on charter market earnings. Mr Roach believes charter earnings peaked this year, with 2027 marking the beginning of a downturn. "Pressure should become more pronounced in 2028, before the market bottoms out in 2029," he explained. However, Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, told The Loadstar that although charter earnings would come under pressure, he did not anticipate a market collapse. He argued that tonnage providers had become more disciplined in recent years, limiting the severity of any downturn. He also noted that chartered tonnage represented approximately half of carriers' operational capacity. Jan Tiedemann, VP of liner strategy at Alphaliner, told The Loadstar longer trade routes, slow-steaming and growing consumption in emerging markets could absorb some additional capacity. He also pointed to higher bunker and emissions costs, port constraints, and trade imbalances as factors increasing tonnage requirements.

Hapag's standalone Asia-Mexico string adds another spoke to Gemini hub network

Hapag-Lloyd has presented AMX, its new Asia-Mexico service, as standalone: its own ships; its own rotation of Ningbo-Qingdao-Busan-Ensenada-Manzanillo-Lázaro Cárdenas-Ningbo; launching in January 2027. Standalone is the word the press release leans on, and it is the one worth questioning. AMX is standalone the way a spoke is standalone - Hapag owns the vessels, but it can only fill an 8,000 teu ship on this run because the Gemini hub network it operates with Maersk gives the cargo somewhere to come from. The question more important than what AMX actually is... is why Hapag can build it now and could not a few years ago. Why Hapag couldn't do this before Owning the ships was never the hard part. Making a standalone loop work was, and that is what Gemini changed. Hapag has the Mexico cargo -- its customers' boxes already fill thousands of slots a week -- but that cargo has been riding other lines' ships, and a self-operated 8,000 teu loop has to be kept full in both directions and plugged into ports Hapag does not call directly. The hub-and-spoke network it now runs with Maersk supplies the missing pieces - balancing cargo through the Gemini hubs and relay connections onward, so AMX does not have to source a full, self-sufficient ship at Asian load ports. That option did not exist in a usable form until Gemini bedded in over the course of 2026. The simple answer to 'why standalone' and 'why 2027' is that the network to support a self-controlled spoke only recently came together. This is not a one-off design. Hapag's new Asia-South America east coast loop, ASX, is built the same way - a north Asian anchor port at Qingdao; no Shanghai call; and a relay through a Gemini hub. AMX repeats that pattern to on the Pacific. Neither reads as a line striking out alone. Each is an owned loop made to clip onto the Gemini backbone, and the method is consistent -- control the vessel, fill it through the hubs. The next move is MSC's On the Mexico trade Hapag has not been sitting in a consortium at all. It has run its book by buying slots, chiefly from MSC, the largest carrier into the country. That slice is not small: I estimate Hapag's allocation on MSC's loops is worth around 8,375 teu of nominal vessel capacity, call it some 7,000 teu of usable space for its customers once a ship is realistically loaded. Line that up against AMX, sized at 8,000 teu-9,000 teu, and the service looks less like new capacity than like Hapag rebuilding its existing slot block on its own hulls. The point of AMX may not primarily be to carry more, but to stop renting space from a direct rival. That raises the question of what MSC next does? The slot deal is MSC's to continue or end, and a carrier that has just watched its slot customer launch a competing service has every reason to reclaim the space and fill it with its own fast-growing Mexico cargo. If MSC terminates, Hapag loses the slots it was already replacing with AMX and ends up roughly where it is today on capacity, albeit independent of a competitor's deck. If MSC keeps selling, Hapag briefly holds both. Either way the move is the same: a line that was depending on the market leader for space is buying its way out of that dependence. Mexico's pull is not new Neither the demand levels nor this kind of service are new. CMA CGM ran the same play in May 2024, launching M2X, its Mexico Express, to almost exactly the ports Hapag has now chosen - in fact, AMX's rotation differs from M2X's original by a single North China port. The pull is still there. Chinese manufacturers have kept building in Mexico to serve the United States from inside the USMCA wall and to sell into Mexico itself, though the frantic investment of 2023-24 has since cooled, probably unsurprisingly. Which means Hapag is - two and a half years later - responding to the signal CMA answered first with a near-identical loop, into ports that are already stretched. The cautionary note sits in the same data: CMA CGM has lost more Mexican import share than any carrier over these years, even while running its own loop. A ship of one's own controls the cargo without guaranteeing you keep it.