Container Logistic / Supply Chain News — September 2026

Where Will 15 Million TEU of New Ships Go?

The ships are coming and the harder question is where they fit. The container ship orderbook has reached 14.84M TEU which is equal to more than 43% of today’s fleet. But ships do not create cargo nor global demand grows evenly. Some trades are expanding quickly others are growing much more slowly. Old ships are also staying in service longer. This matters because deployment will shape rates, utilization and asset values. So can some major trades absorb more? It will depend on demand and Red Sea situation.

MSC already operates close to ~7.4m TEU. That is more than 21% of global liner capacity. Another ~3m TEU is already on order. That pipeline alone is larger than Hapag-Lloyd’s fleet. Yet MSC has bought 30+ secondhand ships this year. Some of the latest ships were built in 2002 and 2007. Some will not join MSC until 2027. One recent purchase is still sailing for Maersk. MSC clearly does not simply need more ships. So what is it really buying? MSC is buying time.

Maersk has ordered more cautiously than its biggest rivals. In 2024, it aimed to keep fleet capacity near 4.3m TEU. Now 26 new ships are confirmed. Each will carry 18,600 TEU. All will be dual-fuel. Delivery starts in 2029. A wider programme of up to 42 ships has also been reported. That could be worth close to $9bn. So is Maersk renewing its fleet — or changing its growth strategy? Maersk is already larger than planned

Hapag-Lloyd lost $173m in H1 and it raised its outlook in July when EBITDA guidance was $2.7–3.7bn.

Now it has raised it again. 2026 EBITDA is now $3.9–4.4bn. EBIT is now $1.25–1.75bn. Demand remains strong and spot rates are still improving.

Global container trade just hit a new record.

July reached 17.3m TEU, the highest month in CTS data. Volumes are now 5.1% higher YTD. But the growth is not coming evenly. Europe is growing, Africa is growing faster, The Far East remains the main export engine, and the US tells a very different story. August imports were near record highs. Yet Jan–Aug volumes were still 0.4% lower y-o-y which matters for ships, services and port investment.

Europe trade is growing.

They continue importing more however their exports have dropped. The imbalance is widening. Volumes rose 3.8% in H1 2026. That looks healthy, but the growth is becoming much more one-sided. More cargo is arriving less is leaving. That matters because ships and containers still need to move both ways. And when the balance changes, the capacity needed to move that trade can change too. So trade imbalance is growing and repositioning costs increasing.

Blank Sailings Becoming Normal.

More ships are entering the fleet. Less capacity is sailing even though the global container fleet keeps growing. But scheduled capacity keeps disappearing. Over the next 5 weeks, ~80 East-West sailings are blanked. That removes 11% of planned departures. Blank announcements rose 56% week-on-week. Yet almost the entire global fleet is employed. So the supply adjustment is happening elsewhere. Above matters for rates, reliability and planning. Why are blank sailings becoming normal? More ships do not mean more space. Asia–US East Coast capacity is up 46% vs H1 2019. Blanked capacity is up 215% over the same period so more fleet capacity is not translating into more sailings. The pattern is spreading

Suez crossings are gradually increasing and shorter voyages could solve one problem and create another.

Gemini is adding four more services. More than 40 ships above 18,000 TEU have crossed this year and the return is moving beyond trials nevertheless overall normalization is still only 35%. Yet most Asia–Europe capacity still sails around Africa. So most of the supply shift may still be ahead. That matters for rates, capacity and reliability. MSC is returning to Suez but only selectively. INDUSA goes westbound through Suez. Eastbound still goes around the Cape. Only 27% of Asia–Europe capacity is back via Suez. A shorter route saves time and fuel. But it also releases capacity.

Why Are Rates Rising as Service Gets Worse?

Higher prices are buying less certainty. Shippers are paying more while service is getting worse and cargo growth is modest. Asia–US East Coast spot rates are almost $11,000/FEU. Far East–North America on-time performance fell below 20%. North American imports grew just 1% in H1. Those three numbers should not fit together but they do. And the reason may tell us what rates do next. So what is driving the gap which is getting wider? Asia–US East Coast spot rates reached $10,900/FEU which is 10% above the 2024 Red Sea crisis peak !

Will Freight Rates Fall in Q4?

More ships are coming but the network is still tight. Freight rates should be falling since the fleet is bigger and peak season is fading. Also Suez is starting to reopen but the market is not moving in one direction. While the WCI fell the SCFI rose. Panama is also tightening as carriers blank sailings. So does Q4 finally bring lower rates or does the market stay tighter than expected? Rates are already moving in different directions. What should we watch before freight rates move? The rate usually moves after something else does. Freight rates are one of the most watched numbers in shipping. But watching the rate itself can be too late. For anyone exposed to rates, timing matters. When to lock, when to negotiate and when to wait. The challenge is knowing which signals move first.

Meantime logistics costs aren't falling. Freight rates may ease but the total bill is not. Many charges other than freight do not move with the spot rate. Fuel has its own price. Storage has its own clock. Insurance follows risk. Inland transport follows a different market. So when ocean rates fall, much of the saving doesn't necessarily reach the final logistics bill. A relevant indicator could be terminal congestion as well as carriers' ability to manage capacity which complicates the service quality as well as cost.

Almost every major carrier is investing in AI nevertheless CMA CGM looks different.

AI is entering pricing, routing and customer care. It is also moving into daily employee workflows. Startups are feeding new tools into operations, yet competitors are building too. Some may simply disclose much less, so seems that CMA CGM is either ahead or just more visible. AI is moving beyond pilots. CMA CGM has 55 AI projects already deployed. It has identified 200+ use cases across the Group. More than 40,000 employees have received AI training and MAIA is scaling toward nearly 80,000 employees. This is starting to look like infrastructure, not experimentation. AI is entering the shipping engine. AI supports ETA, booking, pricing and cargo release. It also helps routing, fuel use and load factors. Demand and volume forecasting are part of the stack. Customer care handles more than 54m requests each year. The next key metric is ROI, not project count. CMA CGM is building an ecosystem. The Group has committed around €500m to AI. Its five-year Mistral AI partnership represents €100m. Google, Mistral, Poolside and Dataiku are in the ecosystem. Rodolphe Saadé also co-founded Kyutai in 2023. This looks more like a portfolio than an IT project. Startups are becoming a technology pipeline. The latest awards attracted more than 350 applications. ZEBOX now connects 525 startups across its network. This year’s winners span AI security to autonomous hull-cleaning robots. Earlier winners are already moving from pilots into operations. The value is not finding ideas. It is deploying them.

Competitors make the picture harder. Hapag-Lloyd’s Marina AI has 8,000+ internal users. Maersk puts AI directly into customer trade tools. ONE created QUAVEO to develop new AI use cases. MSC has a broad digital stack but discloses less on AI scale. Public visibility is not the same as AI maturity. Seems that there is no hard evidence of who has the “best AI.” CMA CGM’s stronger case is integration. Capital, people, workflows and startups are connecting. Saadé’s position is clear: move fast on AI, but with control. McKinsey finds AI high performers are 2x more likely to have strong senior support. Supporting startups also helps move the wider industry forward. CMA CGM gives the market enough detail to test its strategy. Others may be just as advanced but disclose much less. The real test now is operating performance.

Global schedule reliability fell to ~56% in July.

Late vessels averaged ~6 days behind schedule. Those numbers matter. But they measure vessel arrivals. Not the full cargo journey. A ship can arrive on time but the box can still miss a connection and wait at the terminal or reach the customer days later. Direct service is becoming harder to replace. For 65% of Asia–Europe port pairs, only one network goes direct. Only 5% have direct service from all four. That can make direct shipping more valuable. But Gemini shows another model can work. It moves more cargo through hubs. Yet reliability has been much higher than other networks. So what are customers really paying for?

Covid port Congestion generated ~4.0m TEU waiting.

Today more capacity is waiting. But today’s fleet is much bigger. Port congestion just crossed a number few expected to see again. During the 2nd week of September, more than 4.25m TEU were waiting to berth. That sounds worse than 2022. But today’s global fleet is much bigger. And during the third week, congestion already eased to 3.8m TEU. So is today’s congestion really worse than Covid? Or does the headline hide a different capacity problem? For rates and vessel availability, the difference matters. The absolute record is real.