Carriers are forced to skip an increasing number of ports in order to respect sailing schedules or limit the delays accumulated over the last few months due to the well-known congestion problems affecting the main trades.
According to the data provided by Alphaliner, of the 17 container ships that returned from Central China this week after their round-trip between the Far East and Northern Europe, only the 20,954-TEU CMA CGM Antoine De Saint Exupery arrived in time for its next sailing.
To respect their time schedule, however, the French liner’s boxship had to skip calls to Yantian (westbound) and Tianjin in northern China (eastbound).
On the transatlantic link between Northern Europe and the East Coast of the United States, only one of the nine vessels on this service managed to complete the round trip in the five weeks specified in the schedule.
The consultancy firm notes how Hapag Lloyd’s AL2 service completely skipped Savannah, the most congested port on the U.S. East Coast. Average waiting times at anchor have reached eight days, according to the latest operational update issued by Hapag-Lloyd.
Translation by Giles Foster
