An update on the sea and air freight situation

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An update on the sea and air freight situation

Ocean and Air Situation

Intervracht keeps a close eye on the ocean and airfreight market circumstances and uses this information to advice customers on their shipping strategy and to make sure we keep our service level as high as possible. We also mention our insights in our newsletters which comes out a few times a year.

In this edition we evaluate the market situation since the first ships have arrived after the introduction of the new shipping schedules as a result of the acquisitions and new alliances. We see that the ocean freight market is stabilizing and the rising prices are leveling out.

In the first five months of the year the rates have increased exponentially, especially for export to Asia and to the US. We now see some stabilization of the rates to the Far East but we do expect the rates for export to the USA to increase a bit in the coming month(s). We even see a small decrease of the export Far East rates and space issues seem to be resolved in regards to this market. For export to the US we advise to still book as early as possible in order to achieve guaranteed space. Furthermore we see some congestion in the Rotterdam port in relation to Barge transportation. Many barge vessels experience long waiting times at all terminals in Rotterdam.

Dutch export grew further in April compared to last year with 2.9%. China is developing more and more into an import country, we expect the Far-East export to increase even more over time. In some Chinese ports, such as Shanghai, we already see that more congestion occurs because their infrastructure is based on export.

In our last newsletter we mentioned that businesses shifting their freight from ocean to air just to make sure they reach their deadlines and keep up their flow of goods. This development we see in the early numbers coming from Schiphol airport, showing an increase of freight of 12.3% in May, 9.5% in March and an overall increase of 8.5% in the last five months. Especially Cargo to Asia and in particular Shanghai, is booming. 12% more to Asia and 4% more from Asia. The same happens for outbound traffic to North-America, which increased with 12%. And not only Schiphol is shipping more cargo, the worldwide airfreight volume increased with 14.7% compared to last year. Especially the volumes in Hongkong, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, London, Milano, Chicago and Frankfurt increased significantly.

Sources:

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