As soon as the big East West trades (from the Far East to North America and Europe) cooled down after the COVID-19-pandemic, carriers began shifting capacity to the Europe-North America trade where ocean rates were much higher.
Freight rates from Europe to the US East Coast are however back at ’20 levels, which means that the Transatlantic liner party seems to be over. MSC, which is by far the largest carrier in this trade, has already started to remove tonnage again.
Alphaliner counted on 1 July 2023 a total number of 198 cellular container ships trading in regular liner services between Europe and the East and West coasts of Canada, the USA and Mexico.
They represent a capacity of 1.13 Mteu, up 6.6% year-on-year. This fleet is evenly spread between services linking North Europe with North America (49.8%) and Transatlantic loops to/from the West and East Med (50.2%).
Source: Alphaliner
