Container carriers continue to eliminate sailings due to the coronavirus, although fewer than before. This was reported by Sea Intelligence. The consultancy firm predicts that 1.9 million TEU of capacity will be taken out of service.
The coronavirus outbreak remains a major challenge for container shipping companies, but its impact seems to be decreasing, Sea Intelligence writes. In recent weeks, liner shipping companies have cancelled dozens of sailings. This week is no different, although the growth in cancellations is less than before.
According to Sea Intelligence, this development indicates that shipping lines are confident that volumes are slowly returning to normal levels. A total of 77 sailings were cancelled this week, compared with 70 the week before. The volume decrease is 1.9 million TEU due to the cancellations, whereas the agency previously assumed a decrease of 1.7 million teu.
Conferences cancelled
The virus outbreak also affects some major shipping conferences. TPM 2020 in Long Beach, one of the biggest events for the shipping industry in America, should have started on Sunday, but was cancelled at the very last moment.
The organisation of the Singapore Maritime Week, which was to take place in April, has partly moved the programme to the second half of 2020 and partly to the edition in 2021.
This article first appeared (in Dutch, written by Jordi Kloos) on Nieuwsblad Transport, a sister publication of SWZ|Maritime.
