East-west rates diverge as transpac spots hold while Asia-Europe keeps falling
Container spot freight rates on the main east-west trades diverged this week after a series ...
dreamstime_s_60586696
By Mike Wackett
Record high spot rates from Asia to North Europe and predictions of huge hikes for annual contract rates could lead to a rush of cancelled orders for next year.
Retailers in Europe are already nervous about new partial lockdowns stymieing their sales, and the enormous sea freight rates and surcharges they are being billed is significantly adding to their concerns.
“We are certainly starting to see customers cancelling, as the rates are beyond ridiculous,” one source told The Loadstar today.
It appears carriers are ...
Comment on this article
Ketan D
December 15, 2020 at 4:50 pmWe forwarders also know how to crib well
Open question- are there any shipping lines that are doing better than others? For all hook and folly, I find maersk (other than the crazy freight rates) being the nicest to deal with and max transparency. And its Hapag where we are totally lost. Which is ironical as we shifted a lot of cargo to them considering Maersks new approach.
COSCO and ONE aren’t responding for us to tell much. CMA is good but a lot of surcharges especially in China.
We dont work with MSC so can’t comment
Look forward to others views ?
Dennis
December 16, 2020 at 5:23 pmAgree on Hapag: horrible customer service these days, they simply dont care…