The port of Felixstowe in the UK is one of the hardest hit ports in North Europe, according to a recent release by Sea-Intelligence Consulting.
The Logistics Point May 2020 HERE
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The amount of blank sailings on the main east-west trades are now some 250-350% higher than what is normally seen during Chinese New Year, and hence there will be a significant impact on ports as well.
The Asia-Europe trade lane is also where the world’s more than 100 ultra-large container vessels operate.
As such, the calls to individual ports from these behemoths is an important part of both their operations and finances.
These vessels regularly call 41 different ports in Europe, and using Sea-Intelligence’s Blank Sailing Tracker, it has been possible to measure how severely each individual port will be impacted in terms of blank sailings directly from Asia.
Looking at 2020-Q2, the hardest-hit ports in the Mediterranean are La Spezia, Tangiers, and Damietta which see more than 40% of their direct calls removed due to blank sailings from Asia.
In North Europe, the hardest hit ports are Felixstowe, Zeebrugge, and Antwerp..
…with roughly a 30% drop in vessel calls from Asia. There are only 7 ports that are presently not scheduled to experience blank sailings.
‘This clearly shows that the capacity reductions performed by the carriers will not have an even impact across different cargo gateways, and as a consequence this might serve to strengthen the longer-term competitive positioning of some ports over others in Europe.’ explains Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.