Rate rises loom as port congestion hits four-year high
Congestion in container ports has crept up to a four-year high, with nearly 3.7m teu, ...
With container lines – generally – opting to route their Asia-Europe vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, the trade route has absorbed most vessel newbuilding deliveries over the past year.
According to new analysis from Alphaliner, the recent short-term capacity injections into the transpacific trade aside, a total of 2.62m teu has been added to the global container fleet since May 2024, taking worldwide capacity up to 32.1m teu, representing an 8.9% increase.
Of that new capacity, 816,000 teu was deployed on the Asia-North Europe and Asia-Mediterranean trades, equating to 31% of the global addition, and boosting Asia-Europe capacity by 11%, year on year.
“When comparing the May 2025 and May 2023 figures for this trade, the capacity increase stands at an impressive 40.8%,” Alphaliner notes.
“This is of course due to the Red Sea crisis and the deviation of ships around the Cape of Good Hope.
“In just two years, the carriers have added 2.26m teu of extra capacity between the Far East and Europe, bringing the total fleet on this route to 7.8m teu.
“With 24.4% of the global fleet now trading there, it is by far the largest shipping lane for the liner fleet. Two years ago, the percentage stood at 20.8%,” Alphaliner writes today.
In comparison, just 190,000 teu of new capacity has been added to the transpacific Asia-North America trades, annual fleet growth of a below-industry average of 3.7%; although the analyst warned: “Our figures are, however, based on the service offerings in May, and will be different in June as carriers have reinstated suspended loops or launched new ones in a reaction to high cargo demand and a hefty increase in spot ocean freight rates from China to the US and Mexico.”
Early indications this week are that transpacific spot rates are still soaring – yesterday’s eastbound rate published on Xeneta’s XSI platform showed a more than $1,000 increase over 30 May, with rates jumping 41% since last Friday, to $4,263 per 40ft yesterday.
Meanwhile, the region with the greatest increase in capacity, in terms of percentage growth, was the trades to Latin America, which saw capacity grow 15.6% over the past 12 months to reach around 4.5m teu, turning it into a market as important for global carriers as the India/Middle East trades.
“Last month, 14% of the global container fleet was used in services to and from Latin America,” writes Alphaliner. “The fleet deployed in Latin American services is now exactly comparable in size to the capacity of all vessels serving the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent.”
Alphaliner also noted that India/Middle East capacity had also increased, by 12%, during the same period.
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