Ocean carriers are continuing to remove vessel capacity from the trans-Pacific at a significant clip as the trade dispute between the US and China ignited by the Trump administration’s tariffs shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

With far fewer US-bound goods leaving Chinese docks, carriers have accelerated the raft of blank sailings and service suspensions that began earlier this month, sources tell the Journal of Commerce.

Bookings for China to the US have dropped nearly 54% during the week of April 21–28 versus the comparable week in March, according to maritime visibility provider Vizion and data and analytics company Dun & Bradstreet.

Carriers Zim Integrated Shipping Services, Mediterranean Shipping Co., and Premier Alliance members HMM, Ocean Network Express (ONE) and Yang Ming have all announced capacity reductions on the trade as volumes plummet.

“Carriers have gotten much better at managing capacity,” said Sanjay Tejwani, CEO of consulting firm 365 Logistics. “There has been a massive volume drop [from China], but despite that, rates are at a healthy level. The carriers now know how to manage that capacity to avoid a collapse like we saw during [and before the COVID-19 pandemic.]”

On the service side, the capacity cuts that were in full force in April are expected at minimum to be maintained into May, according to sources. Zim and MSC removed about 100,000 TEUs from the trans-Pacific trade lane in April, with Zim pulling out about 35,000 TEUs in capacity by suspending its ZX2 service, which connects Asia to the West Coast of North America. According to maritime intelligence provider eeSea, MSC’s Orient service was also suspended in April — effectively removing about 77,000 TEUs from the trade.

Meanwhile, the PS5 service from the Premier Alliance — which had been positioned for a May launch — has been postponed indefinitely.

“In my conversations with carriers, they’re very big on pulling capacity out of the China lane and into other Southeast Asian lanes,” said a US-based source with a non-vessel-operating common carrier (NVO).

Southeast Asia bookings on the rise

With US importers looking for a cheaper alternative to China, bookings for cargo from Southeast Asia have increased, according to Vizion. Bookings climbed more than 20% during the week of April 21 compared with two weeks earlier.

Blanked sailings are also gaining momentum. Data from eeSea shows nearly 14% of trans-Pacific capacity was blanked during April, with 18% of the lane’s capacity poised to be blanked in May. Furthermore, port calls on the greater trans-Pacific trade have dropped significantly. Additional eeSea data shows the number of port calls made on the trade has been falling steadily since the second week of April, with more than 25% of calls eliminated during the two weeks between April 7–21.

Ocean carriers are also reducing service frequency to manage capacity. Ocean Alliance member Cosco Shipping will start offering its Bohai service into the Port of Long Beach bi-weekly instead of weekly at least through mid-June.

Other Ocean Alliance services, such as Evergreen Marine’s HTW express service from Southeastern China, are continuing weekly calls, as the alliance also calls in Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan. Cosco is likewise maintaining weekly service on its Yangtse service from South China under the Ocean Alliance because it includes two calls in Vietnam.

But with the capacity removals, there are concerns about long-term impacts to schedule reliability if volumes resume too quickly.

“As they pull [capacity] out, if the tariffs go away, it’s going to be hard to get [services] back up and running,” said the NVO source.

Laura Robb, Associate Editor | Apr 28, 2025, 2:43 PM EDT