Low demand is continuing to impact ocean freight container movements from Asia, with the 2M Alliance now suspending one of their services indefinitely.

With the market picking up very slowly after the Chinese New Year period, sailings on the 2M Alliance’s AE1 service have been blanked in successive weeks since December. However, the service has now been officially suspended by Maersk and MSC, to mitigate the shortfall in bookings versus available space.

While the service does not call directly at the UK, being previously scheduled to call at Rotterdam and Bremerhaven, European bound traffic on the loop has been moved to UK routes. Maersk & MSC, have now confirmed changes to three of their five Asia/North European routes to compensate for its termination.

The service loss could lead to space issues should the market pick up ahead of peak season, but it will hopefully provide more reliability to schedules, which have been hampered by constantly blanked sailings.

As ever, the Westbound team are monitoring developments closely.

 

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