Maersk Line is making some major changes in its trans-Atlantic services. The world’s largest ocean container carrier will begin notifying customers in October of the rates and services it is planning for the trade over the next 12 months.

It has already notified customers that it is changing the interval of
adjustments in its bunker surcharges to monthly from quarterly as of
Oct. 1, and it is planning to reduce capacity on at least one of its
services by using smaller ships.

Maersk is able to make these changes because carriers have cut so much
capacity out of the trade in the last two or three months and are
likely to continue, said Soren Castbak, senior director of the
trans-Atlantic trade for Maersk Line in Copenhagen. He said vessel
capacity has been cut by 19 percent on the services between North
Europe and North Atlantic ports, by 20 percent on services between
South Europe and U.S. South Atlantic ports and by 30 percent on
services between North Europe and Canada. “This is new on the Atlantic,
because when you look years back, when has anyone ever taken capacity
out of the Transatlantic?”

Maersk will begin notifying customers of the rate increases it plans
over the next 12 months by mid-October, or possibly earlier, so that
they can factor them into their 2010 budgets and will notify them of
its planned service coverage by the end of October. “This has never
been done before,” Castbak said. The rate increases on the
trans-Atlantic trades that Maersk implemented on Sept. 1 and Oct. 1
“have got traction,” he said. “This is telling me that we have seen the
bottom on the Atlantic.

Maersk decided to switch making adjustment in its bunker surcharge to a
monthly BAF as of Oct. 1 because “we weren’t always able to get
compensation when we changed it quarterly,” Castbak said.

Maersk Line plans to reduce capacity on the four vessels it deploys on
the five-vessel WestMed service it operates with CMA CGM from South
Europe to the U.S. South Atlantic after the current peak season by
replacing its four 4,000-TEU ships with four 2,900-TEU ships. Castbak
said he expects other carriers that have not yet cut capacity will do
so and that Maersk Line is “looking” at the possibility of further cuts.

Source: The Journal of Commerce Online

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