There has been a considerable increase in the number of extra ships employed on scheduled services, according to Sea-Int in its latest report, which has just been published.
The congestion problems that many ports are suffering from, and the progressive downgrading of the reliability of vessel departure and arrival times, has forced liners to deploy more ships on the trade routes in order to handle the amount of cargo already scheduled.
If, in the 2012-2019 period, an average of 1.9 extra ships per week were added to the routes between Asia and the west coast of North America, in the year of the Pandemic five extra ships were deployed and currently, based on a four-week average, 14 extra ships per week are sailing.
The growth on the Asia-North America East Coast trade route was similar to that seen for the Asia-West Coast route, although the magnitude of the 2021 peak was slightly lower.
On the Asia-North Europe route, very few extra ships are deployed under normal circumstances. Despite a more limited increase during the initial phase of the pandemic, the number of extra ships deployed has been steadily increasing in 2021, starting with the blockage of the Suez Canal.
The result is that ports are now having to handle far more ships than they were used to prior to the pandemic.
Translation by Giles Foster
