News / Secondary services suffer as carriers eye 'container gold rush' to the US

Long Beach/LA 55 vessels waiting on 15/09/21. A total of 252,550 TEU for the 40 Containerships. Source: Vesselsvalue See chart in story for details

Ocean carriers are continuing to redeploy tonnage onto more lucrative east-west tradelanes, leaving shippers on lower-paying routes without a regular liner service.

According to Alphaliner, the Asia to Middle East trade is one of the secondary trades most affected by the drift of ships to other services, with no major carrier now able to offer a weekly sailing.

The consultant said it had counted just 29 vessels deployed on the seven dedicated China-Middle East services operated by the major carriers, whereas 50 ...