Container Shipping Market Sees Unprecedented Capacity Levels

The container shipping market is currently operating in an environment of unprecedented supply, with deployed capacity reaching historic highs across all major East‑West trade lanes. The charts show a monthly breakdown of the average weekly capacity deployed on Asia‑Europe.

Instead of following the traditional late‑year taper following Golden Week, where supply typically contracts to meet softening Q4 demand, average weekly deployed capacity in October and November 2026 has accelerated dramatically, showing a complete detachment from historical trends observed in 2012‑2025.

Deployed capacity on both Asia‑Europe trade lanes was elevated throughout the year, largely due to the Red Sea Crisis and the need for extra capacity to maintain weekly departure frequencies.

However, the increases in October and November 2026 represent a drastic departure from even the elevated 2025 baseline. In these months, capacity pushed past 350,000 TEU on Asia‑North Europe and exceeded 260,000 TEU on Asia‑Mediterranean.

The Transpacific also saw similarly elevated levels of capacity in October and November. On Asia‑North America West Coast, deployed capacity surged to nearly 393,000 TEU in October 2026 and is slated to reach an unprecedented 400,000 TEU weekly on average in November.

Similarly, while Asia‑North America East Coast was largely in line with historical years up until August 2026, its October and November levels are the highest in any given year.

This is a direct symptom of severe vessel bunching, caused by ongoing port congestion and schedule unreliability in Asia. Vessels originally scheduled to depart during Q3 were heavily delayed, cascading into the October and November, and ultimately artificially inflating deployed capacity.

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