Episodes of exclusive TPM content featuring interviews of key stakeholders and attendees.
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The must-attend conference for the trans-Pacific and global container shipping and logistics community
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Container line behavior used to be all too predictable. Carriers would over-order ships, have little ability to manage capacity and raid each other’s market share by driving down rates to barely profitable — or worse — levels. Disruptions were few and far between, meaning the best of all worlds over many years for shippers: low rates and more or less consistent service. How things have changed. Today, even though many industry observers and stakeholders believe carriers have over-ordered again, they can effectively influence capacity through blank sailings and skipped port calls and are benefiting from a series of mega-shocks such as the COVID pandemic and the Red Sea diversions that took sizable bites out of available capacity. Consolidation into a handful of dominant players is enabling carriers to drive up rates quickly — yesterday’s $400 per container increase in a tight market turned into $1,000 or more in the spring of 2024, speaking to carriers’ lofty profit expectations following their experience of earning $400 billion in profits during the pandemic, according to analyst John McCown. Thus, although some carrier behavior in 2024 is certainly the result of a tight market due to the early peak season and capacity pulled off the market due to the Red Sea diversions, is the market witnessing the emergence of a new, post-COVID container line DNA? Many believe this, and, to the extent it’s true, the implications for the market will be significant. This session, featuring a panel of industry veterans, will discuss this new dynamic in depth.