SIMIC

According to the latest bi-weekly assessment by Alphaliner, in the two weeks to 10 October, the number of idled box ships jumped by twenty-five (112,161 TEU) to a total of 76 vessels for 322,394 TEU.

According to the consultant, these are "ships without revenue-generating commercial activity, such as vessels in warm or cold lay-up" and some that are in between deployment and idled longer than normal, reports London's Loadstar.

The idle tonnage does not include vessels on blank sailings or 'slidings', as these will normally resume service after a delay of a week or so at their Asian loading port.

Moreover, ships made 'redundant' by the recent raft of temporary loop suspensions and mergers are not yet included, and therefore considerable spikes in the idle fleet numbers are likely over the coming months.

Nevertheless, the total number of inactive containerships, as counted by Alphaliner, stands at 275 (1,058,702 TEU), which remains historically low, at 4.1 per cent of the global fleet.

Reacting to a feared 25 per cent downturn in consumer demand because of pandemic lockdowns, ocean carriers radically slashed capacity, and by June 2020 had mothballed hundreds of ships, creating an idle pool at a peak of 12 per cent of the global container fleet.

Subsequently, demand from working-from-home consumers exploded as they spent money on home improvements and lifestyle items rather than on services, holidays and at restaurants, resulting in a two-year period of out-of-kilter vessel and equipment supply and huge freight rate inflation.

So far, voiding sailings has failed to 'stop the rot' on the major Asia-Europe and transpacific tradelanes, and carriers are starting "temporary" loop suspensions and service mergers to address the imbalance.

Meanwhile, there is evidence of a fierce rate war developing on the major tradelanes, in contrast to the start of the pandemic when carriers adopted a judicious approach to pricing.