KMTC to dip its toes back in the transpacific trade after 40 years
South Korean regional carrier KMTC Line has returned to the transpacific after 40 years, joining ...
ID 18481035 © Gary Blakeley | Dreamstime.com
A charter market correction could be looming amid the deterioration in spot rates. Citing the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index, Splash reports that spot rates have plummeted some 47%. And, while profitability remains possible as long as utilisation remains above 80%, the same report notes that box ship utilisation on the world’s biggest trades has now dipped below 90%.
Despite the year starting in contraction, the charter sector has been experiencing something of a boom, with the charter to freight ratio at ...
Comment on this article
Mike Wackett
March 19, 2025 at 11:01 amUnlike freight rates, containership charter rates will not collapse overnight. Existing fixtures have a some way to run and owners are sitting on several more quarters of good returns. As we have seen before with Zim and others, carriers may indeed attempt to sub-let excess capacity to mitigate their losses.