Capacity scheduled to be deployed in 8 weeks post-Chinese New Year on Asia-North America West Coast will be roughly 353,800 TEU per week, 221,700 TEU per week on Asia-North America East Coast, and 314,900 per week on average on Asia-North Europe, according to Sea-Intelligence. All these figures are the highest for the respective trade lanes and represent a significant increase over not only 2021 (where demand was booming), but also a significant increase over the pre-pandemic baseline of 2017-2019.
Figure 1 shows the Y/Y capacity growth rate for Asia-North America West Coast, with 2021-2023 shown as an annualized growth rate over 2019 (a traditional Y/Y growth rate would be misleading due to the drastic shifts in capacity across the pandemic years). The annualized growth rate of 6.1% is not only the highest, but in stark contrast to the pre-pandemic baseline. Asia-North America East Coast records annualized growth of 10.2%. Only Asia-North Europe however, the growth rate of 3.2% is well in line with the pre-pandemic baseline.
Absent any demand growth, it is very likely that the shipping lines will continue to blank sailings to keep capacity closer to pre-pandemic levels.
