Carriers are knocking on the doors of shippers, offering discounted rates for December sailings from China to Europe, as bookings begin to tail off.
However, there is no evidence of a market crash, and rates are likely to gain a new head of steam in January ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday, which falls on 1 February.
According to the Ningbo Containerized Freight Index (NCFI) commentary, spot rates continued to soften this week, albeit from highly elevated levels.
“There was a surplus of space on the European and Mediterranean routes,” said the NCFI. “Carriers have strengthened their marketing efforts and spot rates have continued to fall.”
Indeed, The Loadstar has received several unsolicited space and rate ‘offers’ this week from Chinese-based forwarders, with prices down to $13,000 per 40ft for mid-December shipment from Yantian to Felixstowe.
Rates were also shown for Rotterdam, and it appears UK prices are now back on a level with the Dutch hub.
Moreover, the prices are all ‘guaranteed’, in terms of equipment and space, on nominated Ocean and 2M alliance sailings, and are all inclusive with premium fees no longer being charged on the route.
The WCI Asia to US west coast spot inched up 1% on the week, to $10,058 per 40ft, while the east coast reading improved by 3%, to $13,139 per 40ft.
The FBX, which includes premium surcharges, increased by 4% for the US west coast, to $14,478 per 40ft, with its east coast component up by 3% on the week, to $16,390 per 40ft.
And on the transatlantic, the WCI was unchanged, at $6,272 per 40ft from North Europe to the US east coast, while the FBX was up 4% on the week, to $7,595 per 40ft.
Since March, rates on the transatlantic have spiked by over 280% and, similar to the major routes, show no signs of falling back.
In fact, according to analysis this week by Sea-Intelligence, and using history as a guide, it said significant rate reductions across liner trades could take almost three years.
He added that, in advance of Black Friday and the Thanksgiving holiday, e-commerce volumes were good.
“Large e-commerce giants all run their own scheduled charters, but there are still extra volumes. A top e-commerce company has asked for extra charters immediately to Europe, as its own charter could not accommodate all its volumes.”
But he said rates in the past two weeks had been stable.
“There have been many charters, both ad-hoc and scheduled, which helps to soften the market rate, so we have not seen a big increase in the recent couple of weeks.”
Rates from Europe to the US are also rising, with Heathrow to North America up 10% at $5.03, and from Frankfurt up a more muted 3.2% to $4.47.
One European-based forwarder said airlines were taking Asian volumes to North America via Europe.