Carriers have started suspending planned transpacific services as the trade war between the US and China escalates and demand dampens.
Yesterday, Premier Alliance member ONE confirmed that its PN4 service, due to start in May, would be “suspended until further notice”.
Destine Ozuygur, chief analyst at eeSea, said: “While the service had faced postponement back since early December, the timing aligns precisely with the tariff-related struggles that are heavy on carriers’ minds.”
She said eeSea analysts were also “keeping a close eye” on ONE’s PS5 service, which calls at Los Angeles and Oakland.
“Like the PN4, its commencement date was pushed back to May in ONE’s announcement from December,” she said. “It is also still starkly absent of any definitive vessel assignments with less than one month to go.”
She added: “There may not be an incredibly dramatic onslaught of blanks headed our way in May just yet, but the numbers are growing.”
According to the eeSea database, there are 49 blanked sailings forecast for the Far East-North America trade this month and 36 so far for May.
“We can realistically expect to see those numbers reach 40-plus in May, as carriers firm plans for capacity cuts in the weeks ahead,” Ms Ozuygur predicted.
Indeed, this morning eeSea confirmed MSC had blanked two sailings on its Orient weekly service, which calls Long Beach, Oakland, and Portland, and replaced slots 4 and 6 on the schedule with ‘TBN’ [to be notified] – “approximately halving the capacity we can expect from this 10,600 teu service in the next eight weeks”, noted eeSea.
Geneva-based MSC also blanked another voyage this month and added two more ‘TBN’s on the May schedule for its Pearl service that sails from Vietnam, Taiwan and China to the US west coast.
Hong-Kong carrier TS Lines is also among those suspending services, including its AWC2 service scheduled for 29 April.
“We can only speculate if this cutback is a direct result of Trump’s trade war with Asia… the final voyage on the service will be made by the TS Tokyo, an 18,000 teu Taiwanese build, forecast to make its last call to Los Angeles on 13 April,” said Ms Ozuygur.
She said the only remaining transpacific service offered by TSL was the AWC, with an average weekly vessel capacity of 4,800 teu, jointly operated with SeaLead Shipping.
Container market analyst Braemar said: “The primary drag on the 2025 outlook is a projected decline in trade demand… Uncertainty surrounding US reciprocal trade tariffs complicates container demand forecasting.”
It estimated that container trade growth would fall to just 1%–2% this year, down from the 6%–7% predicted last year.
According to Vizion tradeview platform data, US import bookings in the past seven days equated to around 169,000 teu, down from 516,000 teu the week before. For China-US volumes, the figure is down to 54,000 teu from 148,000 teu week on week.
It also showed that US export bookings in the last week were some 83,000 teu, down from 139,000 teu the week prior. US to China was down nearly 50%, to 4,400 teu from 8,000 teu.
“It does look like global container shipping is beginning to slow,” commented Ben Tracy, VP of strategic business development for Vizion.
Further, S&P Market Intelligence data shows mainland China’s imports from the US fell 9% year on year in the three months to 28 February, including a 17.9% slide in products covered by the “phase one” trade deal.
It noted that the new tariffs covered all $143bn worth of US exports to mainland China, which represented 7% of all US exports and 6.4% of mainland China’s imports, the most exposed sectors including a wide range of commodities and manufactured products.
Meanwhile, on the air side, one source SAID all Atlas Air flights to the US from Hong Kong had been cancelled until “at least” the end of the week. “It seems only FedEx, UPS and Cathay are going to soldier on for the moment,” said the source.
However, Atlas Air SAID: “We do not comment on individual customer flying, however, we can confirm that flights are continuing as scheduled.” And a search of outbound Hong Kong and Shanghai flights indicated no mass cancellations.
Atlas Air has previously reported that it gives a significant portion of its long-term capacity to ecommerce customers.
Today, the US will implement 104% tariffs on Chinese imports, and announced a significant rise in de minimis-related fees for shipments below $800 – largely targeting ecommerce.
In a further round of retaliation, China today added 50% to its first 34% tariff on US goods, raising the levy to 84%, with a restriction on critical minerals.
