MSK: There has been a shortage of containers for months

Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company, admitted that due to the booming Pacific market, there has been a shortage of containers in the market for several months, especially the 40-foot-long large containers.

The day before Maersk’s statement, DHL, one of the world’s largest customers in the industry, criticized shipping companies for shipping large numbers of containers to the Pacific Ocean to profit from record high freight rates on the West Coast of the United States. As a result, this has led to a shortage of containers in other parts of the world, such as on the main Asia-Europe trade routes.

Maersk wrote in an email that this particularly involves a shortage of 40-foot HC containers, which are 1 foot taller than standard 40-foot containers.

"In recent months, we have seen a general shortage of containers in the market, especially 40-foot HC containers, which are currently the most powerful customers in the market using such containers. The global supply chain bottleneck caused by the turbulence caused by the epidemic. This situation is further exacerbated." Maersk wrote.

Dominique von Orelli, head of shipping for DHL Global Freight Forwarding, pointed out this problem. He also said: “Some ocean carriers are currently unloading container equipment from Asia-Europe trade routes and intra-Asia routes in order to deploy them within a certain range. Trans-Pacific and Latin America and other high-yield routes."

"Based on this, we have observed a shortage of containers on trade routes between Asia and Europe and delays in some regions."