Port congestion and rising demand forces carriers into schedule adjustments
Increased demand and worsening port congestion in Asia is forcing the east-west alliance carriers to temporarily adjust their liner service networks.
With long waits for berths on the US west coast and at several North European ports, attempts by shipping lines to recover a vessel’s schedule are being thwarted.
Source: The Loadstar
Europe air traffic reaches 50% of 2019 as recovery continues
The recovery in Europe’s air traffic has hit a new milestone as people take to the skies again for summer vacations.
Aside from a brief pickup around Christmas, Europe’s air traffic is at its highest compared with pre-Covid levels since March last year, when the continent’s lockdowns really began to affect demand. On Sunday it rose just above 50% of 2019 levels based on a seven-day moving average, data from Eurocontrol show.
Source: AJOT, Bloomberg
Liverpool recovering from severe port disruption
The Port of Liverpool is hoping to make significant progress this week towards recovering from a period of severe disruption in the last two weeks that has led to high levels of delays and frustration among cargo customers.
Sources close to the port in northwest England report that there have been a several issues that had “come together to create a perfect storm” for the port, including a large number of vessels and containers arriving, a shortage of empties that had been expected to arrive, and an IT outage. All of these together “drove up stack density to a very high level”, to the point of making the port become inefficient and “unproductive”. That drove “what was a busy port” to a level where services broke down to an “unacceptable” point, sources close to the port acknowledge.
Source: Lloyd's Loading List
Box ship orderbook grows fatter, with Evergreen and SITC needing more capacity
The global containership orderbook continues to expand: on Friday, both Taiwanese liner operator Evergreen and Chinese intra-Asia carrier SITC ordered more newbuildings.
Evergreen returned to Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding for two 24,000 teu ships to be delivered late 2023-early 2024, while SITC exercised options for two 1,023 teu vessels at Dae Sun Shipbuilding & Engineering.
Source: The Loadstar
Hamburg Süd vessel hits ferry pier in Santos
The 11,503TEU container ship, Cap San Antonio, crashed into a ferry pier in the Port of Santos in Brazil on 20 June. The floating berth, which was hit by the boxship "has apparently now sunk," according to the container shipping analyst, Lars Jensen.
Hamburg Süd has confirmed that its vessel "has been involved in an incident in Santos" while departing the port complex in route to Paranagua, Brazil.
Source: Container News
Suez ship case adjourned as Canal company assesses new offer
An Egyptian court adjourned a case over the giant ship that blocked the Suez Canal to allow the waterway’s operator time to assess the latest offer of financial compensation.
The court in the city of Ismailia said the next hearing will be on July 4. Suez Canal Authority attorney Khaled Abu Bakr told the court on Sunday that the operator was looking into a new out-of-court offer made by the vessel’s owners, without giving details of it.
Source: AJOT, Bloomberg
New Zealand exports making a mode shift to air as shipping crisis deepens
Container shipping’s capacity crisis is pushing more of New Zealand’s exports to airfreight.
Congestion at troubled Ports of Auckland had already prompted a raft of delays and carrier surcharges for the country’s shippers and now, the bottleneck in South China is causing further headaches, especially for agricultural exporters due to the lack of reefer plugs available at Yantian.
Source: The Loadstar
Port of Oakland to receive new STS crane
Port of Oakland will receive a new towering ship-to-shore crane (STS) in the current week, which will be delivered to the Everport marine terminal at Oakland run by Everport Terminal Services, Inc. (ETS).
This investment in new equipment is expected to enhance the infrastructure and cargo operations at ETS' terminal in Oakland.
Source: Container News
Cathay Pacific cargo capacity continues to recover
Cathay Pacific’s cargo capacity increased in May as it continued to recover from the introduction of stricter crew quarantine rules in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong in February introduced rules requiring crew to quarantine after an international journey, which affected cargo flights, but these were relaxed in mid-April for vaccinated crew.
Source: AirCargo News
