It is known that the on-going global outbreak of the COVID-19 is having an impact on global shipping, affecting all shipping sectors from passenger ships to container ships and oil tankers.
In light of the pandemic situation, EMSA releases a monthly report providing figures on the impact of COVID-19 on shipping traffic.
The COVID-19 outbreak impacted ship traffic due to:
- the limitations in movements of passengers and crew members (heavily affecting passenger ships)
- the lockdown measures in various Member States, reducing international trade
According to the report, the number of ships calls in October 2021 increased by 5% compared to the same month in 2019. The most significantly affected sectors have been the cruise ships, refrigerated cargo ships and vehicle carriers.
Meanwhile, the number of Passenger ships and Ro-Ro Passenger vessels had an increase of 26% and 15% respectively. The paper also found that the most affected countries Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Portugal and Spain.
During October 2021, there is an increase of the number of port calls with a positive 9.3% variation to the
2019 values and a small decrease of -4% of the total gross tonnage calling.
Up to now in 2021, most of EU-MS flagged fleets increased their number of port calls compared with 2019 and some of them with very significant increases.
The decreases are more prominent in Belgium, Croatia and France and with smaller magnitude variations in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy. On the other hand, there are very significant increases for Latvia and Poland as well as for Denmark and Norway.
EMSA also analyses how the shipping routes from Europe to China and from Europe to the US have been affected. In 2020, the ship traffic from Europe to China and the US has declined when compared to same periods in 2019. In 2021 the traffic to and from China is still below the 2019 values even though increasing above the
values from 2020.
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