The ‘Big 3’ shipping alliances — 2M, Ocean Alliance, and The Alliance — are cutting back operations to prevent freight rates from falling because of a steep decline in cargo volumes.
There were 212 temporary cancellations of container ships from April 6 to 10, a sharp increase from 45 in the preceding week, according to Sea Intelligence, a shipping industry consulting company. The Asia-Europe route suffered the largest decreases of 29 percent to 34 percent in container transport volume.