Idle fleet falls due to slow steaming

The idle containership fleet has fallen, as employment of larger vessels has received a boost in recent weeks due to the current extra slow steaming initiatives that carriers have put in place and to fill gaps created by the deferred delivery of large newbuildings.

According to figures released by Alphaliner, the idle fleet currently stands at 1.48 Mteu (11.4% of total fleet), down from 1.62 Mteu (11.7%) recorded two weeks ago as a number of large ships have been re-activated to fill gaps caused by service lengthening. A number of new services launched in intra-Asia trades have also led to the re- employment of some smaller ships. This has led to a fall in both carrier and non-operating owner idle tonnage which now stands at 6.5% and 4.9% of the fleet respectively.