Carriers Face Grim Future as Drewry Urges Fleet Downsizing beyond Blanked Sailings

Drewry, a leading maritime consultancy, has cautioned that blank sailings are merely a “stop-gap solution” for container carriers grappling with severe tonnage oversupply and dwindling demand. The firm projects a rare decline in global container demand in 2025, marking only the third such drop since 1979.

With global trade routes suffering under the weight of excess capacity, particularly due to the ongoing US-China trade tensions, Drewry senior analyst Simon Heaney emphasised the urgency for carriers to rethink strategy. Damage limitation is the name of the game, he said, adding that investing in emerging markets and cutting operational costs is vital.

Heaney stressed that while blank sailings—especially on US routes—may ease short-term pain, they won’t solve structural issues. Instead, carriers need to embrace more robust actions such as ramping up ship idling, accelerating scrapping, and postponing or cancelling new ship orders.

Complicating matters further is a proposed US tariff on China-built ships, which could distort the demolition market. Non-China-built vessels, particularly from Korea and Japan, may suddenly gain higher market value, making their scrapping less attractive and further delaying fleet rebalancing.

Currently, containerships aged 20 years or more represent 3.5 million TEU of capacity—yet only 6% were built in China. Scrapping only non-Chinese ships limits options, potentially impacting newbuilds and charter markets as demand shifts away from Chinese shipyards.

The situation suggests a tough road ahead for carriers unless a comprehensive restructuring of global fleets is prioritised.