Blank sailings jump 122% in February – will there be enough capacity for shippers? in International Shipping News 17/02/2026 The doubling of blank sailings by carriers, as flagged by the Drewry Container Capacity Insight, has raised questions. In this Logistics Executive Briefing, Drewry experts provide our independent, data-backed assessment of what this wave of sailing cancellations means and what to expect. This month, a total of 136 Transpacific, Asia-Europe/Mediterranean and Transatlantic sailings have been cancelled, up 122% month-on-month. Carriers are clearly leaning heavily on the blank sailings, at least partly to adjust to the seasonal drop in cargo during the Lunar New Year holidays, starting from 17 February. Most of the blank sailings are on the Transpacific route. Our view that the ramp-up in blank sailings is at least partly caused by Chinese New Year is reinforced by the fact that blank sailings will fall back in March But will there be enough capacity for shippers and NVOCCs in late February and March? Drewry’s unique market numbers on demand, supply and utilisation help answer that question: Despite the blank sailings, effective ship capacity offered to the market will not be cut between 4Q 2025 and 1Q 2026 overall (source: Container Capacity Insight). The number of blank sailings will fall back to about 53 in March on the major East-West routes and effective capacity is forecast to expand by 20%+ month-on-month in March (source: Container Capacity Insight). Asia-to-North America container demand is declining. Recent numbers on imports at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in December show year-on-year reductions of 8% and 5%, respectively (source: Port Statistics). Traffic volume on the Transpacific Eastbound route is forecast to be lower in 1Q 2026 than in 4Q 2025 (source: Drewry Container Forecaster). Transpacific Eastbound ship utilisation was already below 85% before we entered the weak 1Q 2026 quarter (source: Drewry Container Forecaster). Despite February capacity reductions, spot rates on the Transpacific EB and Asia-Europe trades continue to weaken, down 1% WoW on 12 February (source: Drewry’s World Container Index). Therefore, we found that the measures taken by many ocean carriers to blank sailings – even if disruptive – are not disproportionate and will not cause a shortage of capacity overall. There will be less frequent sailings from many ports and volatility/variability of transit times remain high, but Drewry’s deep analysis should allay concerns among shippers for now, we believe. Source: Drewry Tops 2026-02-17 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share