Congestion on the US West Coast led to a sharp increase in both demand and capacity on the Asia-US East Coast routes.
Quoting Sea-Intelligence data, Xeneta said that in the three months to July 24, capacity between Asia and the US East Coast was up 18.9% on-year to an average of 210,000 teu.
“Compared to the average weekly capacity in the same period last year, this is the equivalent of adding four 8 750 teu ships a week,” said Xeneta.
Asia-US West Coast capacity eased over the period, but remained the larger trade by far. In the same three-month period, Asia-West Coast capacity averaged 310,000 teu, down 1.7%.
The shift between the coasts was driven by significant delays and queues at US West Coast ports, but the problem was not solved, it just moved.
Schedule reliability fell on the US East Coast with just 18.7% of services running on time in June with average delays of nine days for those arriving late, while on the West Coast, reliability improved to 24.8% in June with average delays of 9.9 days.
The latest data confirms that of the McCown report in July, which noted an Eastward shift in queues and delays on the US international container trades.
The shift of capacity means that 61.3% of Asia-US boxes came by the West Coast in the 12 weeks to July 24 2022, down from 66.1% at the end of the same period in 2021.
Data from May 2022 showed US East Coast imports up 11.9% year to date compared to 2021, and up 7.3% in May alone.
“As many of these containers have been moved away from the West Coast to the East Coast, there has been a corresponding drop in volumes imported through the US West Coast from the Far East.
These are down 8.0% year to date and were down by 12.8% in May alone compared to May 2021. Total imports from the Far East to North America have risen 0.9% year to date,” said Xeneta.
Source: Seatrade Maritime News
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