Carriers continued to slash freight rates ahead of China’s Golden Week holidays with heavy discounts offered across all routes. Rates on the Asia-Europe route came under the heaviest pressure, with Transpacific rates to the US East Coast also dropping sharply as the ILA dockworker strike on the US East Coast looks certain to proceed on 1 October. The shift in cargo volumes to the US West Coast has picked up pace but this provided little support for rates to the USWC with no signs of port congestion at Los Angeles and Long Beach despite surging volumes in the last 2 months. Additional capacity is still being introduced with TS Lines and Hede Shipping deploying additional ships to the US West Coast to capitalise on the demand for express services.
Rising congestion in China in the aftermath of Typhoon Bebinca also did little to bolster freight rates with weak cargo demand due to the mid-Autumn festival holidays with the weakness expected to continue through October.
Linerlytica
DSV leaps to 2nd place in ocean freight forwarder rankings
DSV has announced on 13 September 2024 an agreement to acquire Schenker from Deutsche Bahn in a deal valued at €14.3Bn (US$15.95Bn). The combination of DSV and Schenker would create the 2nd largest ocean freight forwarder in the world just behind Kuehne & Nagel, and overtaking the current no. 2 DHL. The Schenker deal is the 8th large acquisition by DSV since 2000 and follows the earlier acquisitions of DFDS Dan Transport in 2000, JH Bachmann in 2005, Frans Maas in 2006, ABX Logistics in 2008, UTi Worldwide in 2016, Panalpina in 2019 and Agility in 2021.
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