Ocean Oct 11, 2026 · 7 min read

Asia-Europe rates are flat after Golden Week, and carriers want 26% more from 19 October

Hapag-Lloyd wants $4,200 from 19 October. The market is at $3,337. Shanghai to Rotterdam spot fell 2% to $3,337 per 40ft container on 8 October, Drewry’s index shows. Asia-Europe rates have now fallen for 13 weeks in a row. On 19 October, Hapag-Lloyd’s new FAK (freight all kinds, its standard tariff rate) for North Europe is $4,200, about 26% higher. We don’t think it holds. Blank sailings are low. Drewry calls the faster-than-expected return to Suez “the biggest threat to carrier efforts to support rates”. Forwarders should quote Q4 Asia-Europe off the spot market, not off the tariff. Our call: Shanghai–Rotterdam stays below $4,000 all October.

Asia-Europe carriers are asking for 26% more on 19 October. Suez is why they won’t get it
China’s Golden Week holiday is over, and container rates did not move much. Drewry’s World Container Index (WCI) for 8 October fell 2% to $4,351 per 40ft container (an FEU, or forty-foot equivalent unit). On Asia-Europe, Shanghai to Rotterdam fell 2% to $3,337. Shanghai to Genoa was flat at $3,696. Daily Cargo News, reporting Drewry’s figures, said Asia-Europe rates had now “declined for 13 consecutive weeks”.
In eight days, carriers try to reverse that. Hapag-Lloyd’s new FAK rates start for sailings tariffed on or after 19 October. FAK means “freight all kinds”: the carrier’s standard published rate for general cargo, before any contract or spot deal. Hapag-Lloyd’s FAK to North Europe is $4,200 per 40ft. That is about 26% above Drewry’s Rotterdam spot rate.
We think the 19 October increases will mostly fail. The reason is simple. More ships are heading back through Suez, and carriers are not cancelling enough sailings to offset it. Rates follow capacity, and capacity is rising.

What the indexes say

Drewry’s 8 October readings were soft across the board. Shanghai to Los Angeles fell 3% to $7,624. Shanghai to New York fell 2% to $10,220. A week earlier, The Loadstar reported Shanghai–Rotterdam at $3,399 and Shanghai–Genoa at $3,702. That earlier drop was the twelfth weekly fall in a row. Drewry expects rates to stay stable next week.
China’s own index tells the same story. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI), published by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, was 3,664.11 on 9 October. Financial site FX678 reported that as up 1.81 points on the previous reading; Sina reported it as flat. Either way, almost nothing changed. The exchange said rates on most routes moved only slightly and demand stayed stable, Sina reported.
Freightos sees the same picture. Its 6 October update put Asia–North Europe at about $3,260 per FEU, down 3% on the week, and Asia–Mediterranean at about $3,555, down 2%.
The bigger trend is worse for carriers. Xeneta, the rate benchmarking firm, said on 26 September that its Far East–North Europe average spot rate was $3,945 per FEU on 24 September. That was down 28.7%, or $1,590, since 1 July. Far East–Mediterranean was down 37.8% over the same period.
Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand said then that for Asia-Europe, “early October may provide a short pause before a resumption of the falling trend.” So far, the post-holiday prints fit that.

What carriers are asking for

Container News reported Hapag-Lloyd’s new Far East–Europe FAK rates on 24 September. They apply to sailings tariffed from 19 October until further notice. Per 20ft and 40ft container:

North Europe: $2,750 and $4,200

West Mediterranean and Adriatic: $3,200 and $4,600

Egypt, Türkiye and East Mediterranean: $3,600 and $5,100

Black Sea, Bulgaria and Romania: $3,650 and $5,200

The rates include Hapag-Lloyd’s Marine Fuel Recovery charge, its fuel surcharge.
Others are doing the same. The Loadstar reported that MSC “announced a new FAK of $4,500 per 40ft on both Far East-North Europe and Far East-west Mediterranean shipments”, beginning 19 October. CMA CGM has a $4,700 FAK to the West Med and $4,900 to the East Med for the same date.
Set those against the spot market. Hapag-Lloyd’s $4,200 is $863, or about 26%, above Drewry’s Rotterdam rate. Its West Med rate of $4,600 is about 24% above Genoa. MSC’s $4,500 is about 35% above Rotterdam. Drewry itself said carriers are “attempting to reverse the downward trend by introducing higher FAK rates in the second half of October.” It did not say they would succeed.
There is an odd pattern here. A forwarder told The Loadstar it was still receiving FAK reductions for the first half of October, even as carriers announced rises of around $1,000 per 40ft for the second half. One forwarder asked the paper: “If carriers have enough cargo for a roll pool to increase rates, then why reduce rates for sailings in the first half?” A roll pool is booked cargo that a carrier can push to a later ship if space runs short. It is what gives a rate rise teeth. If the cargo were there, carriers would not have needed the cut.

Why we think the rise won’t stick

The first reason is Suez. Ships that avoided the Red Sea went around Africa, which takes longer and ties up more vessels. When they come back to the shorter Suez route, the same fleet can carry more boxes each month. Drewry, via Daily Cargo News, said: “The faster-than-expected return to the Suez route remains the biggest threat to carrier efforts to support rates”.
That return is speeding up. Freightos head of research Judah Levine wrote on 6 October that “container carriers continue to gradually increase Red Sea traffic”. He said the Premier Alliance, which Freightos called “the last holdout among the three alliances and MSC”, will resume some Red Sea transits this month. Freightos described the extra effective capacity as “likely one contributor to container rates sliding since mid-July”. It also said Mediterranean rates had “slid back to pre-peak season levels”. Drewry told The Loadstar that “the return of services to the Suez route is adding capacity to the trade”.
The second reason is blank sailings. A blank sailing is a scheduled voyage the carrier cancels to take capacity off the market. It is the main tool carriers use to make a rate rise stick. There are not many right now. Drewry’s Cancelled Sailings tracker counts 39 blanked sailings from week 41 (5 to 11 October) to week 45 (2 to 8 November), The Loadstar reported. That is 5% of 710 scheduled voyages. About a third are on Asia-Europe.
Sea-Intelligence, the analysis firm, said “the relative amount of capacity being blanked is actually quite low for the post-pandemic era”. The Loadstar also reported that Asia–North Europe blanking is at its lowest since the pandemic began.
The third reason is demand. It is steady, not strong. A European forwarder told The Loadstar that “bookings for post-Golden Week seem steady so far”. Steady demand plus more ships plus few cancellations does not lift rates by a quarter in a fortnight.
To be fair to carriers, mid-month FAK moves can lift spot rates for a week or two. But Asia-Europe has seen 13 straight weekly falls. Whatever carriers filed over the summer, the index kept going down.

What this means for forwarders and shippers

First, quote Q4 Asia-Europe off the spot market, not off the tariff. The FAK is an asking price. The WCI, the Freightos Baltic Index and Xeneta’s averages show where boxes actually move. Right now they sit between about $3,260 and $3,945 to North Europe, depending on index and date.
Second, keep quote validity short. If a carrier does push some of the increase through for a week, you do not want to be locked into a lower sell rate. If the increase fails, you do not want a customer locked into a higher one either. A seven- to ten-day validity window covers both.
Third, watch transit times. Services moving back to Suez will arrive sooner than the Cape of Good Hope routings they replace. That is good for customers. But schedules will shift while services switch over, and rolled cargo is a real risk on sailings that do get blanked at short notice.
Fourth, think about the Med and East Med separately. Freightos said Mediterranean rates have already fallen back to pre-peak levels, and Xeneta had Far East–Med down 37.8% since July. Carriers are asking the most there: $5,100 to $5,200 per 40ft to the East Med and Black Sea. Those lanes have the most room to fall short.
Fifth, the transpacific is a different market. Shanghai to Los Angeles, at $7,624, is still more than twice Shanghai to Rotterdam. Freightos said Golden Week blanks may keep transpacific rates stable in the near term. Don’t read Asia-Europe weakness across to US lanes.
Air is softening too, for anyone weighing a mode shift. The Freightos Air Index had China–North America down 18% in a week, to about $5.60 per kg, and China–North Europe down 7%, to about $3.83 per kg.

Our call

We expect the 19 October FAK rises to deliver a short bump at most. Our prediction: Drewry’s Shanghai–Rotterdam rate stays below $4,000 in every October print. By mid-November it will be at or below today’s $3,337. We also expect Hapag-Lloyd and its peers to announce lower FAK rates for early November sailings, as carriers did for early October. If Shanghai–Rotterdam closes October above $4,000, we got this wrong, and the Suez return is moving slower than the carriers fear.

Sources