List of blanked transpac sailings grows as trade war heats up and demand cools
** EDITED AT 17:19 BST ON 09/04/25 TO INCLUDE COMMENT FROM ATLAS AIR, AND AT ...
Photo: © Sheila Fitzgerald
By Mike Wackett
The 2M alliance has announced a further blank sailing this week from Asia to North Europe to use the vessel on another service.
The last-minute cancellation of the sailing of the 19,224 teu MSC Erica from Shanghai on 21 February is surprising, given that the ship is due at the port at 4am on Sunday in ballast and, according to a local report, is fully booked.
MSC said the omission of its Griffin-branded service was necessary “to enhance schedule reliability”, while Maersk said cancelling its AE55 ...
Comment on this article
David Thompson
February 16, 2021 at 3:38 pmI’d love to hear Simon Sundboell’s reasoning behind the theory that blank sailings improve schedule reliability because it sounds bonkers to me. Any chance you could get that from him in a further article?
Alex Lennane
February 16, 2021 at 4:06 pmWe’ll see what we can do!
Mike Wackett
February 17, 2021 at 3:14 pmHi there Dave. If a carrier delays the sailing of a ship in the current week in order to regain the schedule for the following week then its reliability is improved – albeit at the cost of the sailing this week of course!