Thursday, June 26, 2025
Home News Surging volatility in Asia-Europe vessel capacity

Surging volatility in Asia-Europe vessel capacity

Weekly container vessel capacity departing a region often exhibits significant variability, as vessel capacities can differ even within a single-liner service.

“These weekly fluctuations can be quite drastic, especially during Chinese New Year and Golden Week, which makes seeing the underlying trends quite challenging,” stated Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

“Source: Sea-Intelligence.com, Sunday Spotlight, issue 680”

To mitigate these seasonal effects and better understand the true extent of weekly capacity fluctuations, we calculated the standard deviation of the weekly changes in capacity over a rolling 52-week period. For the Asia-North Europe route, this is illustrated in Figure 1.

“We have truncated the y-axis, so the longer-term data does not get dwarfed by the pandemic-induced spike,” noted Murphy.

The data reveals that volatility in vessel capacity on the Asia-North Europe trade has significantly increased over the past decade. Previously, the fluctuation was relatively stable at around 10% before the pandemic, but it has now tripled in magnitude. This suggests that shippers can no longer rely on a consistent level of capacity in the Asia-North Europe trade, emphasizing the need for enhanced contingency planning even when scheduled capacity appears sufficient.

“Source: Sea-Intelligence.com, Sunday Spotlight, issue 680”

In contrast, the Transpacific trades have not experienced fluctuations as severe as those in Asia-North Europe. Specifically, the Asia-North America West Coast route currently exhibits greater stability in the weekly capacity offered to shippers, as shown in Figure 2.

Over 52 weeks from September 2023 to August 2024, the standard deviation of weekly capacity on the Asia-North Europe route is nearly 90,000 TEUs.

Meanwhile, the two Transpacific routes have a standard deviation of around 50,000 TEUs per week, and the Asia-Mediterranean route sees a standard deviation of 34,000 TEUs per week.





Latest Posts

Solstad renews partnership with Marlink

Solstad has renewed its long-standing partnership with Marlink to advance its digitalization strategy through to 2028. Under the new agreement, Marlink will deliver SealinkNextGen, a...

KEZAD and Witthal Gulf Industries sign deal to launch recycling plant

Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi Group has signed a 50-year land lease agreement with Witthal Gulf Industries for the establishment of the country’s first...

Emirates Shipping Line announces new service to Seattle

Emirates Shipping Line has announced its entry into the United States market with the launch of the Sun Chief Express service, a direct, fortnightly...

Port of Long Beach approves $833 million budget

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners has approved an $833 million budget for fiscal year 2026, nearly half of which will go toward...

Tykoflex and Kongsberg Discovery develop subsea infrastructure

Tykoflex AB and Kongsberg Discovery have announced a strategic partnership to advance the development of modular, intelligent, and secure subsea infrastructure. This will combine Tykoflex’s...
error: Content is protected !!