Congestion-induced ‘double sailings’ cancel out Golden Week blanks

Deployed capacity on the transpacific and Asia-Europe trades during this year’s Golden Week holiday was the highest on record, according to new analysis from Sea-Intelligence.

Port congestion in Asia, caused by a succession of typhoons, led to vessel bunching at loading ports, and subsequently resulted in a series of “double sailings”, which cancelled out carriers’ blanking strategy during the holiday period when they typically look to skip voyages due to a lack of cargo sitting on Asia’s docks

“Double sailings are essentially two departures on a liner service in a week,” analysts at Sea-Intelligence said. “Liner services work on weekly departure frequencies – ie, one vessel departs the origin region every week.

“When vessels get delayed, they bunch up – the delayed departure that moved from week 1 to week 2 is now sailing along with the original week 2 departure, hence a ‘double sailing’,” the consultancy explained.

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