AXS-Alphaliner: East/west box trades down 15%

AXS-Alphaliner: East/west box trades down 15%    East/west container liner capacity has fallen 15 percent since Aug. 1, according to information service AXS-Alphaliner.
   In its latest newsletter, AXS-Aphaliner said weekly capacity in the three major trades have collectively fallen to 780,000 TEUs from 916,000 TEUs. By trade lane:
   ' Capacity in the Far East/Europe lane has dropped 21 percent to 330,000 TEUs.
   ' The Far East/North America trade fell 9 percent to 335,000 TEU.
   ' The North America/North Europe-Mediterranean slipped 4.5 percent to 116,000 TEUs.
   Meanwhile AXS-Alphaliner said the amount of idle containership capacity continues to climb and has now reached 800,000 TEUs on 303 vessels, or about 6.5 percent of world capacity. It also note 12 ships with total capacity of 22,000 TEUs have been delivered or are on their way to scrapyards.
   AXS-Alphaliner added containership orders have fallen to 6.1 million TEUs, the lowest level in 16 month. The information service said no ships have been ordered in the past four months and several orders have been cancelled or converted to other ship types.