News / May Day could be a cry for help from carriers, as another holiday looms

The five-day May Day holiday shutdown in China is adding to capacity adjustment problems for ocean carriers.

Notwithstanding the 20% of headhaul Asia-North Europe sailings already cancelled next month, carriers are still struggling to best match supply with ever-weakening demand and to avoid the ‘nightmare’ scenario of half-full 20,000 teu ULCVs arriving in North European hub ports in June and July.

A carrier source told The Loadstar last week their biggest fear was that if utilisation levels plummeted then, it would be ...