News / Transpac container service closures mount

Photo: VesselFinder

As spot freight rates on the transpacific trade continue to weaken, the number of service closures is beginning to mount.

Japanese carrier ONE today announced that “the resumption of the PS5 service, originally scheduled for May 2025, will be temporarily delayed until further notice”.

Meanwhile, Alphaliner reported today that Hong Kong-listed carrier TS Lines had closed its standalone AWC2 service that connected the southern China ports of Nansha, Yantian, Shekou, and Xiamen with Los Angeles.

According to the eeSea liner database, the service was originally designed to have six vessels deployed with an average capacity of 1,750 teu on a 42-day round-trip. However, the data also shows that the service has been plagued by blanked and skipped sailings since the start of the year, and the last sailing out of Asia was by the TS Tokyo and its mid-March departure from Xiamen.

The carrier continues to operate the AWC transpacific service in cooperation with Singapore-based SeaLead Shipping, which deploys six ships – three from each carrier – in a port rotation of Qingdao-Shanghai-Ningbo-Los Angeles.

In its 2024 annual report, published last week and its first since its IPO in November, TS Lines management revealed that last year its transpacific services carried 40,000 teu and earned $70.7m in revenue – however, with group revenues amounting to $1.6bn for the year, it was a relatively small part of its business.

“At the moment of its launch in mid-August 2024, spot container freight rates from Shanghai to California stood at $6,580 per 40ft, according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index. At the end of March, when TS Lines decided to end this standalone service, these spot freight rates were down to $1,870 per 40ft,” Alphaliner wrote.

Falling spot rates were also reportedly behind Zim’s decision to close its ZX2 transpacific express service, which offered a 35-day Shanghai-Ningbo-Long Beach rotation, deploying five ships of 5,500 teu capacity.

“Lower spot ocean freight rates, now 77% down compared with July last year, and a decrease in bookings because of the impending trade war between the US and China, are behind the decision of the Haifa-based operator, which usually realises a huge proportion of its Asia-North America revenue on the spot market,” claimed Alphaliner.

The final sailing on the service is the 5,500 teu Mississippi, which departed Shanghai on 9 April, the same day the first slew of transpacific cancellations were announced, following the escalation of Donald Trump’s trade war with seemingly everyone.

However, the vessel is later scheduled to join Zim’s ZEX service that runs a Cai Mep-Yantian-Long Beach rotation. This will take the ZEX fleet up to six vessels and allow Zim to insert an extra call at the North Vietnamese port of Haiphong.