US Ocean Import Rates Continue To Rise Despite Low Volumes And Blank Sailings

Ethan Buchman, in the Freightos Weekly Update makes note of two key Ocean Import trends at the moment:

• US ocean import volumes are still low, significantly so, with no sign of normalizing any time soon

• US ocean import spot rates are the highest they’ve been in 18 months.

Full Article:

“Summer import projections are better than they were a month ago, but ocean volumes to the US are still expected to be down significantly through September.

And ocean carriers agree, announcing 75 more cancellations this week, with more expected in the coming days.

So far 10-15% of sailings from Asia to Europe have been cancelled through August, and 5-10% have been blanked to the US. The bump in demand has also resulted in some rolled shipments out of China, with some shippers reporting delays of up to two weeks to get on overbooked ships.

But there are some signs of a return to normal: Air rates continued to decline from their near-record highs out of China as PPE demand cools, with Freightos.com marketplace data showing rates falling by 5-25% across lanes out of China since last week.

Data from WebCargo – who announced a new partnership to offer live eBookings and pricing with Air Bridge Cargo this week – shows a 63% increase in air cargo eBookings in May compared to April, as some shippers may be motivated by the recent decline in rates and some commercial cargo returns to the market. And after being hit hard by travel restrictions, some passenger air travel is also being restored, which will add capacity to the cargo market even as volumes dipped in the last few weeks.

There are also signs of life in US trucking employment, with Wall Street taking note, and eCommerce is still surging. As a result both UPS and FedEx announced rate hikes for high-volume shippers this week, and logistics operators added thousands of jobs in May to keep up with the volume of orders.”