Deployed capacity drops sharply in CNY 2023

Five weeks ago, Sea-Intelligence analised the scheduled East/West capacity for the four-week 2023 Chinese New Year (CNY) period.

The results have shown that the 2023 CNY capacity is going to be higher than in past years, despite the slowdown in demand.

Sea-Intelligence’s analysts noted that carriers will be able to bring capacity back in line with the historical levels.

As it appears in the figure above, carriers were able to bring scheduled capacity down by 18%, meaning that if the actual deployment stays like this, supply on Asia-North America West Coast across CNY 2023 would be in line with the pre-pandemic baseline.

This was brought about by an increase in blank sailings from 7.6% to 35.8%. “There was a similar trend on Asia-North America East Coast and Asia-North Europe, with the scheduled four-week CNY capacity deployment decreasing by -11% and -6%, respectively, bringing both closer to the pre-pandemic baseline,” commented Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

The increase in blank sailings was also substantial in both cases.

In addition, the second figure shows the progression in the percentage of capacity blanked week by week, from the 50th week of 2022 to the third week of 2023, when this latest analysis was written.

On both Asia-North America East Coast and Asia-North Europe, this new, higher level was more or less reached by the first week, according to Sea-Intelligence’s analysis, for Asia-North America West Coast, however, this level was reached in increments.

“This is an indication that perhaps the carriers are not as decisive on the Asia-North America trade lane than on the other two,” commented Murphy, adding, “that said, a window of 2-3 weeks before CNY for the brunt of the blank sailing is still very late.”