Newsletters

The Loadstar reported on 8 March that commercial feeder operators in Northern Europe face reduced transhipment demand, loss of significant business due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the increasing threat of ocean carrier customers operating their own services.

MSC and CMA CGM, already dominating the intra-European carrier market (respectively 32.6% and 16.2% market shares) have both increased their capacity serving the region over the last year, either by repositioning vessels servicing Russia to other intra-European routes or by purchasing second-hand ships. While Maersk and Cosco group have roughly maintained their capacity (with respective 11.3% and 6.7% market share), independent feeder operators, such as Unifeeder (4.7%) or X-Press (2.7%) have reduced their capacity on the intra-European routes, notably on their North Europe services to the Baltic region.

Independent feeder operators are now facing the expansion of stand-alone services from major ocean carriers, such as MSC ramping up its standalone services outside of the 2M Alliance and offering services which were previously offered by independent operators under vessel sharing agreements.

Source: The Loadstar