Carriers try surcharges to raise yields as Indian freight rates fall
CONTAINER carriers serving India-Europe tradelane appear to be coping with falling freight rates by piling on surcharges, reports London's Loadstar.
Hapag-Lloyd, for example, has announced a heavylift, or container overweight, surcharge for shipments booked from West India (Nhava Sheva/Mundra) to North Europe from next month.
The levy will be US$100 for standard containers weighing over 22 tonnes (gross), including the container tare weight and will apply from July. It will apply to all containers until further notice, the German carrier told shippers.
Typically, major carriers have attempted to push through overweight and similar surcharges around this time to take advantage of the peak shipping season, but often at a heftier scale. Hapag-Lloyd's modest levy is an indication of carrier realisation that the market is on the shippers' side at the moment.
Average export freight rates from India to Europe and the Mediterranean have already fallen far below pre-Covid levels.
According to freight forwarder sources in Mumbai, short-term contract booking rates for a TEU from Nhava Sheva/Mundra to Felixstowe/London Gateway or Rotterdam stand at $600, down from $900 last month. For an FEU, carriers are selling at about $700, compared with $1,000 a couple of weeks ago.
source:SchedNet
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