News / Post-CNY demand looks weak after transpacific capacity shuffle

Photo: VesselFinder

As the transpacific container market prepares to begin trading once more as the Chinese New Year holiday draws to a close, total shipping capacity has declined from a year ago, shortly before the first wave of US tariffs were unveiled.

New analysis from Alphaliner today shows total capacity on the transpacific trades from Asia to the North American west and east coasts currently stands at 5.2m teu, across 532 containerships, a combined capacity level that is 3.2% down on the beginning of 2025, when 554 vessels were deployed.

Source: Alphaliner

However, the headline figures mask considerable differences between carriers, with some injecting significantly more into the trade, while others appear to be on the retreat: for example, Maersk and CMA CGM both operate significantly less capacity than this time last year,  with reductions of 24.3% and 15.2% respectively; while Japanese carrier ONE increased its capacity offering by 10.3%.

Meanwhile, ONE’s Premier Alliance partner Yang Ming saw the largest year-on-year drop of any carrier on the trade, 30%, although Alphaliner said this was largely due to its tonnage being redirected to the Asia-Europe trades.

“Yang Ming’s year-on-year capacity reduction might look spectacular, but is purely the consequence of vessel pooling within the Premier Alliance,” it explained. “The Taiwanese carrier has shifted 108,600 teu of vessel capacity to the Far East-Europe trade, where it had very few ships.”

It added that similar dynamics explained the large drop in Maersk’s operated capacity.

“In the case of Maersk, ranked sixth, there are changes explaining the 24.3% year-on-year capacity reduction. The Danish carrier closed its TPX service between the Far East, Tacoma, and Alaska in February last year, when it joined forces with Hapag-Lloyd in the new Gemini Cooperation,” wrote Alphaliner.

However, it added that the creation of the Gemini Cooperation had had the opposite effect on partner Hapag-Lloyd, which had seen its transpacific offering grow as Maersk’s declined.

“Its membership of Gemini has significantly increased Hapag-Lloyd’s fleet on the trade, by 24.3%.

“The Hamburg-based carrier is the single tonnage provider for loops such as the Far East-US east coast TP12/US2 and TP16/US4, in which a total of 27 vessels of between 8,750 teu and 13,900 teu are deployed,” it said.

The net result for Maersk is that its offering under Gemini is broadly the same as it had under its 2M alliance with MSC, which expired this time last year.

“For Maersk, the total capacity offered by Gemini – 884,500 teu for a market share of 17% – is pretty comparable witjh the size of its 2M vessel-sharing agreement (VSA) with MSC – 883,200 teu in January 2025,” it said.

Meanwhile, in its quest to build a standalone global network, MSC saw its transpacific capacity increase 11.7% over the past year as it sought to plug the gap left by Maersk.

In terms of VSAs, the Ocean Alliance remains the largest provider, operating 35.3% of the total transpacific capacity, followed by Premier at 21.4% and Gemini at 17%. MSC remains slightly behind Gemini, operating 16% of transpacific capacity.

Capacity is set to be further trimmed over the following fortnight, with 15 sailings scheduled to be blanked this week and around 10 next week, while post-CNY demand remains difficult to predict.

US west coast freight forwarder Freight Right’s market commentary yesterday said: “Most market participants in Asia are currently away for the holiday, leading to a complete lack of interest in new business or shipping schedules.

“The rush to ship cargo before the shutdown concluded last week, leaving behind very little in terms of current cargo movement,” it added.