Analysis by Drewry
According to Drewry, at the Containerisation International Global Liner Shipping Conference in Hamburg one of the keynote shipper speakers, Robert Gora of Siemens, called upon ocean carriers to offer up faster services between Asia and Europe, saying that many companies such as his are willing to pay a premium for expedited options.
Gora said it currently takes around 40 days door to door to ship from Shanghai to Germany, compared to 10 days for the much more expense air freight option and 20 to 25 days for rail. While it is true that services have slowed down measurably since the advent of slow steaming, shippers do still have a fairly wide range of options available to them. Currently, there are 13 weekly services from Shanghai to Hamburg with port to port transit times ranging from 29 to 36 days, see above figure. Between Shanghai and Rotterdam there are 15 weekly services within the same band of transit times.
Assuming no interim ports and ships sailing at 24 knots Drewry calculates that the fastest possible transit time between Shanghai and Hamburg is 19 days, a potential saving of 10 days against the current best.
In theory, with smart planning shippers using the main ports should have no problem receiving a regular flow of cargo, regardless of the extended lead times. Slow steaming has become entrenched within the container industry and shippers have long since adapted to its demands, meaning the market for faster services would be relatively small, limited to shippers experiencing extraordinary demand peaks and/or having to plug occasional gaps caused by poor service reliability.
Source: Drewry