BWR: Blanked sailings surge on China-North America trade

According to BlueWater Reporting’s Blanked Sailing’s Report,  a total of 188,592 TEUs are being withdrawn on the China to North America trade for the two weeks following Chinese New Year, up 50 percent from a year prior.    Ocean carriers are voiding several sailings on the China to North Europe and China to North America trades, resulting from the Chinese New Year holiday, as illustrated by data from BlueWater Reporting‘s Blanked Sailings Report.
   This year, Chinese New Year fell on Jan. 28, with blanked sailings most prominent between Jan. 29 and Feb. 12. In 2016, the holiday landed on Feb. 8, with blanked sailings mostly occurring between Feb. 7 and Feb. 20.
   As illustrated in the first chart below, the China to North America trade saw a significant jump in withdrawn capacity from 2016 to 2017 for Chinese New Year. According to the data, a total of 188,592 TEUs will be pulled from 24 services during the two weeks following Chinese New Year in comparison to last year, which saw 125,699 TEUs withdrawn from a total of 18 services.
   This increase marks an approximate 50 percent hike in withdrawn capacity, or nearly 63,000 TEUs, from 2016 to 2017. Consequently, the China to North America trade will see a weekly average of 21 percent pulled from its total operating capacity versus the 18 percent of withdrawn weekly capacity it saw in 2016 during Chinese New Year.
   Meanwhile, the chart below shows how ocean carriers are scheduled to withdraw a total of 170,447 TEUs of capacity during the Chinese New Year this year on the China to North Europe trade from 11 blanked sailings, up from 169,029 TEUs last year from 11 blanked sailings. Although the number of blanked sailings was the same, it is clear that larger containerships are scheduled to be withdrawn during, and post-Chinese New Year 2017.
   Even with a similar amount of capacity withdrawn, because of the reduced capacity deployed on the trade this year, there will be a weekly average of 36 percent pulled from its total operating capacity versus 31 percent from last year.