2024 began with many industry observers and stakeholders expecting a familiar brew of widening vessel capacity outpacing modest inventory restocking in North America and Europe, putting downward pressure on rates but lacking the volatility of the pandemic era. It didn’t turn out that way. Diversions prompted by Houthi rebel attacks reformulated the ship capacity equation by forcing longer sailings. Tariffs and labor threats, and inventory jitters pulled demand from Asia to North America and Europe earlier. The speed at which the container market turned this spring should give the industry pause. The decades of carrier consolidation, coupled with better information and more aggressive pricing efforts when the market is in carriers’ favor, is ultimately making ocean carriers more effective in controlling capacity. What that means in the face of new ship deliveries is unclear, and so, too, is the degree to which the reforming of two new alliance networks increases competition. On the micro level, trust between shippers and carriers is the lowest it's been in years. The lofty hopes of a breakthrough in shipper-carrier relations out of the ashes of pandemic-driven disruption have been dashed. Under higher inventory-carrying costs, shippers often feel a sharper bite from a lack of ocean reliability, while carriers argue that shaky volume forecasts and price bashing challenge their best efforts to deliver consistently. Both sides decry the lack of an enforceable contract. It’s against this backdrop, that a diversity of voices — a carrier, forwarder, industry analyst and investment analyst — will weigh in at TPM25 on the blend of capacity, demand and reliability for the next 18 months, while taking a clear-eyed view of the implications for shipper-carrier relations.