AXS Marine’s newsletter reports that the idle containership fleet fell below 10% for the first time in six months as slow steaming and the deployment of extra loaders for the pre-Lunar New Year cargo rush took up more than 60,000 teu of idle tonnage over the last fortnight.
As at 15 February, Alphaliner’s idle fleet tracker lists 508 ships for 1.30 Mteu idle compared to 532 ships for 1.37 Mteu at the beginning of the month. This represents 9.9% of the total cellular fleet compared to 10.4% two weeks ago.
Both the carrier-operated fleet and non-operating owner (NOO) fleet fell as excess tonnage was absorbed in all vessel sizes. Only the 5,000 to 7,500 teu class saw a slight increase in idle vessels, due to the return of a number of large ships on NYK’s account following the Grand Alliance’s service rationalisation which was started in January.