Carriers are themselves driving the rates ‘race to the bottom’ they warned would lead to a “dire situation” in 2024 – Maersk singled out as one of the worst offenders.
Announcing the group’s third-quarter flop last week, the Danish carrier’s CEO Vincent Clerc told investors that, without an uptick on the spot market in the final three months, the coming year would prove difficult for ocean shipping.
His comments, though, received sharp shrift from the wider supply chain, with Rhenus’s head of ocean freight for the Americas, Stephanie Loomis, describing them as “comical.”
She noted on social media: “I find it comical that Clerc is warning of a ‘dire’ situation if rate levels did not improve before the end of the year. These under-market Maersk offers keep ‘showing up’ in co-loaders’ rate sheets, week after week.
But Maersk is not the only carrier behaving like this: sources claim “they are all at it.”
Read more in an article from The Loadstar.