FBX Weekly: Industry feeling the pain, air and ocean rates remain stable

Here are the latest China-US container rates, which are heavily impacted by the ongoing outbreak:

•  China-US West Coast prices (FBX01 Daily) rose 8% since last week to $1616/FEU. Rates are 4% higher than the rates in 2019 at this time and, in what may be a slightly optimistic sign, the first time rates have stabilized over the $1,600 mark in the last six months.
•  China-US East Coast prices (FBX03 Daily) are up 2% from last week, reaching $2709/FEU. This rate is 8% lower than this week last year.
Key insights below:
1  Ocean rates continue to be propped up by cancellations to meet slumping demand for most goods, as air rates have stayed extremely elevated due to peak PPE demand. The diverging impact on air and ocean rates since the start of the outbreak is dramatic.
2  Logistics providers across the industry are feeling the financial impact and looking for strategies to cope until the global economy recovers.
Analysis
Freight trends this week were influenced by the same pandemic-driven factors that we’ve seen in the previous weeks: ocean rates buoyed by removed capacity, high air rates driven by PPE demand, and logistics providers contending with the global shutdown.

Overall, blanked sailings kept ocean rates stable and even slightly elevated this week. An 8% increase in rates for the China-US West Coast lane appears to be the result of a slight surge in enterprise shippers booking under their expiring contract rates, leaving less capacity available on the spot market. Negotiations for new long-term contracts were finalized despite the significant uncertainty of what the global recovery and shipping volumes will look like this year.

Air rates remained highly elevated but stable this week, according to Freightos.com marketplace and WebCargo data. The addition of repurposed passenger jets may be contributing to this levelling off as demand for PPE remains extremely high.
For air cargo coming out of China, some estimates indicate this peak PPE demand has kept rates extremely high despite passenger jet conversions bringing the total air cargo capacity beyond its level for this time last year.
As air carriers are adding capacity to meet the spiking demand for critical items to battle the pandemic, and ocean carriers are removing capacity to cope with the slumping demand for most goods, the difference in the impact on rates for each mode since the start of the pandemic is striking: air rates out of China have increased more than 400% since January, while ocean rates are nearly unchanged.