Carriers prepare to lay-up 50 vessels for the winter

New season schedules could mean 1 million teu removed from main trades
The idle containership fleet is expected to swell over the next few months, as carriers lay-up ships for the winter season, according to one analyst.

AXS Alphaliner said the idle fleet currently stood at 225,000teu, compared with 1.5 million teu in January, but it was likely to rise to between 600,000teu and 1 million teu by the end of December.

Alphaliner said: “Although not a single carrier has confirmed its winter schedules yet, the withdrawal of some capacity is already being planned.

“Such moves will be required to bring supply and demand into balance, as demand trends show signs of weakening after the past nine-month surge.

“The decline of the idle containership fleet looks certain to be reversed in the next few weeks, as seasonal volume reductions are due, especially on the Asia-Europe trade where some 10% of the ships currently deployed could be removed.”

The Paris-based analyst said the majority of ships expected to be laid-up are over 3,000teu, a size of vessel difficult to switch to alternative trades.

The carriers’ winter deployment programme usually begins towards the end of October. At least three services are expected to be removed on the Far East-North Europe route, as well as two on the Far East-Mediterranean route.

This would add around 300,000teu to the idle fleet – some 50 vessels.

The reduction in the size of the idle fleet over the past eight months has been driven by service re-activations and the introduction of new services.

Around 320,000teu of this shrinkage has been absorbed through extra-slow-steaming.

The re-activation of most of the idle fleet occurred despite the delivery of 1.21 million teu of new vessels so far this year. (source: IFW)

Back to archive