In the long run, the consolidation of the ocean freight market will benefit the air cargo market as the price difference between the two modes will be smaller than in the past. The consolidation of the ocean freight market will benefit the air cargo market in the long run as the spread between the two freight modes will remain closer than in the past.
Containership earnings have been surging since mid-2020, said Thomas Crabtree, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Market Analysis-Air Cargo Specialist, at the Scandinavian Air Cargo Symposium this week. He pointed to statistics from the Drewry Sea and Air Shipper Insights report showing that the average box rate was 225% higher last year than in 2020 at $7,379 per 40 foot equivalent unit (FEU), compared to a 31.4% year-over-year increase in 2020. Year-to-date, prices have risen another 87% year-over-year to just over $9,000 per FEU. The containership industry also continues to suffer from reliability issues.
“The container shipping industry is consolidating,” he said. In 1995, the top ten liner companies in the world controlled 45% of the maritime container shipping capacity. “By the end of 2021, they are 90% in control – staggering. So they have pricing leverage they haven’t had before.” In the 25+ years I’ve been in the industry, the current cost gap between air and ocean freight is The smallest I’ve ever seen. Soren Skou, chief executive of market leader AP Moller Maersk, told The Economist in September last year that he expected box shipping to recover to more than pre-coronavirus levels, Crabtree said. high level.The air cargo market grew in real terms by 14.9% to EUR 121.4 billion. Throughout 2021, the growth of the air freight forwarding market is driven by strong demand for cargo and supply chain bottlenecks in sea and land transport, Transport Intelligence said. The latter has led to some shipments being diverted to air freight to solve the problem, thereby boosting the air freight market.
Crabtree said: “The price of container shipping will remain high for the foreseeable future, which is good news for those of us who are full of planes, as air freight is becoming relatively cost-effective.
