Container spot freight rates fell for another week on the two busiest east to west trades, with no carrier led price hikes to arrest the slide. Drewry's World Container Index put the Shanghai to Rotterdam leg down 3 percent week on week at 4,677 dollars per 40 foot box, while Shanghai to Genoa dropped 6 percent to 5,630 dollars, as analysts at Linerlytica reported carriers offering rates below 5,000 dollars and support for the 1 August increase quickly waning.
The weakness came despite relatively tight capacity, and analysts pinned it squarely on carrier discounting across the Asia to Europe and transpacific lanes. On the Pacific, the Shanghai to Los Angeles rate eased 2 percent to 5,739 dollars per 40 foot box, while Shanghai to New York held flat at 7,578 dollars, and the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index pointed to further gentle declines into the following week.
Lines are leaning on capacity management to defend pricing. Drewry noted carriers are using blank sailings to prevent further erosion, with eight blanked departures scheduled next week against seven this week, while three blank sailings are planned on the Asia to Europe trade. MSC said it intends to apply a new FAK level on 15 August of 7,800 dollars per box to North Europe and 6,700 dollars to the Mediterranean, and the latest round of transpacific general rate increases, ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 dollars per box, was due to land on 1 August.
Whether the hikes stick will hinge on cargo demand. The freight index jumped 12.5 percent for both US coasts in the latest reading, reflecting carrier optimism, but forwarder Freight Right warned that with front loading fading the market could settle back toward current pricing after a brief August spike. The read across for the wider industry is a freight market softening as the tariff driven rush to ship ahead of deadlines runs out of momentum.