Japan/North America capacity drops

Japan/North America capacity drops    Allocated capacity from Japan to North America has fallen markedly since early April, according to figures from American Shipper research affiliate ComPair Data.
   Allocated capacity — that is, ComPair Data's estimate of the portion of vessel capacity on a service that is allocated to a particular trade route — dropped 30.3 percent from April 3 to May 8. That's in addition to a 5.1 percent drop of capacity from March 6 to April 3.
   In all, 4,768 TEUs of weekly allocated capacity have been withdrawn from the eastbound trade since a week before the massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis engulfed northern Japan. That's left roughly 9,300 TEUs of weekly capacity on the trade.
   Meanwhile, according to U.S. containerized import figures from trade intelligence company Zepol Corp., in April Evergreen Line increased its volume of trade from Japan to the United State by 2.2 percent from April 2010. The increase was 14.3 percent from March 2011. Zepol said most carriers saw Japan-U.S. volumes shrink in April.
   Evergreen has less than a 3 percent share of the trade in terms of operated capacity — little surprise that the big three Japanese container lines offer the most allocated capacity, followed by Maersk Line and APL. Evergreen operates one service, the nine-ship NUE loop, between Japan and North America. But it takes slots on three New World Alliance services and one Maersk line service between Japan and North America.
   In all, Evergreen's volume to North America increased 30.56 percent in April, according to Zepol, with shipments from Asia as a whole to North America rising 13.6 percent from March to April.
   Zepol tracks inbound containers using U.S. Customs data straight from carrier bills of lading as they are entered in the Automated Manifest System. ' Eric Johnson