News Highlights week: 01 - 2023

To be branded ‘IA80’, the new offering will connect Japan, South Korea, Southern China, Cambodia, Thailand, Southern Vietnam and the Philippines. 
Along with the ‘IA80’launch, Sealand will shorten its ‘IA88’ service, which currently covers Japan, China, Vietnam and Thailand. Sealand will drop the Korean hub of Busan, as well as the Japanese ports of Hakata, Moji and Hibikinada from the loop. 
With the exception of Hibikinada, these ports will henceforth be covered by the new ‘IA80’.

Details of the two affected services are as follows: 
>The new ‘IA80’ will turn in five weeks with five ships of 1,000 – 1,800 teu calling at Osaka, Kobe, Hibiki, Busan, Hakata, Moji, Busan, Taichung, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Chiwan, Sihanoukville, Bangkok, Laem Chabang, Ho Chi Minh City, Batangas, Manila, Osaka. 
Sealand’s 1,118 teu MCC ANDALAS is scheduled to perform the service’s maiden voyage from Osaka on 20 January. 
>The revised ‘IA88’ will turn in five weeks, down one week from the current six weeks, with five 2,100 – 2,400 teu ships serving Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Qingdao, Shanghai, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, Laem Chabang, Bangkok, Laem Chabang, Haiphong, Hong Kong, Yokohama. 
This updated rotation will take effect with the departure of the maxi Bangkokmax vessel MAERSK NESNA from Yokohama on 13 January.

MSC, CMA CGM, Evergreen and ZIM strongest growers in 2022 
Despite the year-long decline in front-haul spot freight rates on mainline routes from China, which dropped from their peak in early 2022 to near pre-pandemic levels today, the past year proved to be a particularly lucrative one for liner shipping: Solid contract rates and a strong Transatlantic market helped carriers to remain profitable. 
Many carriers made an effort to expand their fleets to take full advantage of the unusually strong market. Our year-on-year comparison of the top-12 carriers nevertheless shows major discrepancies between the ‘gainers’ and ‘losers’. 
After having increased its fleet capacity by a massive 411,000 teu slots (+10.7%) in 2021, MSC was once again the most expansionist among the big shipping lines last year, adding another 321,500 teu (+7.5%). 
The Geneva-based carrier however ‘only’ received 83,600 teu of capacity from newbuildings. MSC’s impressive growth was mainly due to the shipping line’s continued acquisition of second-hand tonnage, which allowed it to become the world’s largest container carrier on 5 January 2022, when it overtook Maersk. 

Almost one year later, MSC’s fleet capacity is already some 379,000 teu bigger than that of its Danish 2M-partner. Maersk lost 61,700 teu of capacity during 2022 as the company had to re-deliver a significant amount of chartered tonnage. These ships were either sold second-hand or fixed to rival carriers which were prepared to pay higher charter rates or accept longer charter periods.
ZIM has been particularly active on the charter market since ending its cooperation with the 2M partners on the Asia - Med and Asia - WCNA routes meant that the carrier needed some extra tonnage to maintain a strong presence in these trades. 
Percentagewise, the Haifa-based shipping line was the fastestgrowing carrier in the top-12, adding almost 120,000 teu (+29%) to its fleet. Most of this extra capacity was chartered, including three 11,900 teu newbuildings under long-term contracts. 
Evergreen last year took delivery of no fewer than twenty newbuildings, including seven megamax ships for the Asia - Europe trades. The 217,500 teu of capacity that Evergreen received straight from the shipyards explains why the Taiwanese carrier was, at least percentagewise, the second-biggest gainer of 2022 at +12,5%. 
In absolute figures, CMA CGM recorded the second biggest fleet gain as it grew capacity by more than 225,000 teu. Interestingly, MSC, Evergreen and CMA CGM had already been the most expansionist carriers in 2021.