Tuesday, October 20, 2026
The news that moves freight
Ocean Oct 12, 2026 · 8 min read

Hapag-Lloyd’s Philippines booking stop

Manila’s box jam is about empties, not ships, and more carriers will act. Hapag-Lloyd has taken no new bookings to Manila, Batangas or Subic Bay since 29 September, and the stop runs to the end of December, Splash247 reports. It blames “severe constraints on container returns.” Our view: this is a landside equipment crisis. Hapag-Lloyd puts Manila ship waits at 2–4 days, while some truckers have waited up to 40 days to hand back an empty box. AB Capital analysts warn “the bigger risk is other carriers following Hapag-Lloyd’s lead.” Our call: at least one more major line restricts Philippine bookings or adds a surcharge by end-November.

Hapag-Lloyd’s Manila stop will outlast December, and it won’t be the last
Hapag-Lloyd has taken no new bookings to the Philippines’ three main Luzon container gateways, Manila, Batangas and Subic Bay, since 29 September. The stop covers every origin and every trade lane. Splash247 reported on 12 October that it runs until the end of December, and that existing bookings may be cancelled or revised. The carrier’s stated reason is “severe constraints on container returns.”
Splash247 says Hapag-Lloyd is the only major line known to have made a suspension this broad. CMA CGM has blanked two weeks on its BMX service. A blank sailing is a scheduled voyage the carrier cancels. Splash247 puts that down to the ships being redeployed, not to congestion.
Our view is simple. This is not a port congestion story. It is an equipment story. The ships are getting in and out. The empty boxes are not getting back. Hapag-Lloyd’s move is a carrier refusing to keep feeding containers into a market that will not return them. Until someone builds enough space to take those empties back, other lines face the same sums.

The ships are moving. The boxes are not

Look at the numbers Hapag-Lloyd itself published. Its operational update, as reported by Splash247, puts Manila waiting times at two to four days for ships arriving on schedule. Ships that miss their berthing window wait four to seven days. Subic Bay waits are under 12 hours. Batangas operations are described as normal.
Those are not crisis numbers for a ship. So why stop selling space to all three ports, including one running normally?
The answer is on land. Mary Zapata, president of the Confederation of Truckers Associations of the Philippines, told the Daily Tribune that “some operators have waited as long as 40 days to return empty boxes,” according to Splash247. Truckers quoted by Insider PH on 5 October said it can take “two weeks to a month before securing slots to return empty containers.”
A truck parked for weeks with an empty box on its chassis cannot collect the next import. Her confederation told The Loadstar that trucks were left “literally holding the mess.” Fewer trucks means slower pick-ups at the terminal, more full boxes sitting in the yard, and more strain everywhere.
The root cause is old. The Philippines imports much more than it exports. Full containers arrive and are emptied, and far fewer leave full. Splash247 notes that carriers struggle to find space to bring empty boxes back. Jay Santiago, general manager of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA), put it plainly to the Daily Tribune on 10 October: “More containers are entering the country because our imports exceed our exports.”

Who is meant to fix it

Everyone agrees on the problem. Nobody agrees on who pays.
The PPA’s position is that the carriers own the boxes, so the carriers must find the space. Santiago told the Daily Tribune: “That is the responsibility of the shipping lines because the containers are returned to them.” He called more empty-container yards “the most immediate, fastest and most effective solution.” He also said the PPA had proposed a container registry and monitoring system between 2021 and 2023. It was never put in place after a former transportation secretary ordered it suspended, the Daily Tribune reported.
The truckers and customs brokers went further. They were expected to start a voluntary work stoppage on 5 October, ahead of a three-day trucking strike. The Loadstar reported that brokers were urged not to get gate passes, book trucks or release shipments until carriers cut their empties. Reynaldo Soliman, quoted by The Loadstar, said: “Even though we want to ship, we cannot move.” Trucker groups told Insider PH that shipping lines “should either make sufficient space available for empty-container returns or move the equipment out of the Philippines.”
They also made a money complaint. According to Insider PH, Reynaldo Soliman said some parties charge “P15,000 or more just to obtain a return slot.” That is an allegation, not a proven fact. The same group put detention charges at P1,000 to P3,000 per container per day, depending on box size. Detention is the daily fee a carrier charges when its container is kept outside the terminal beyond the agreed free days.
The Bureau of Customs is worried too. Commissioner Ariel Nepomuceno warned in a letter of a “domino effect on port operations and cargo flow,” The Loadstar reported. He proposed moving empty boxes that had waited more than 10 days to offsite space.

We have been here before

Manila’s empty-box problem keeps coming back. Each time it comes back, the carrier response gets bigger.
In August 2014, Hapag-Lloyd said “the ongoing congestion in Manila has not improved.” It decided to “temporarily halt booking acceptance for shipments destined to Manila North and South Harbour,” but only for cargo moving via Hong Kong, Kaohsiung and Singapore, Marine Link reported.
In March 2018, truckers threatened to stop handling cargo for CMA CGM, APL and Hyundai over slow empty returns. The carriers answered by publishing lists of Metro Manila depots, PortCalls Asia reported. Lines and truckers agreed that the release order would name the return yard. They also agreed that detention would not apply if a named yard refused an empty returned on time.
In February 2019, Splash247 reported Manila’s worst congestion since the 2014 crunch. Asian Terminals Inc lined up a group of lines, including CMA CGM, Evergreen, Yang Ming and HMM, to help take more than 10,000 empties out of the port in the following weeks. Hapag-Lloyd stopped reefer cargo to Manila. A reefer is a refrigerated container. The carrier said: “The decision is made due to terminal congestions at Manila port as well as limited trucking capacity.”
In May 2021, Hapag-Lloyd suspended reefer cargo to Manila and Subic Bay again. That time it blamed a lack of reefer plugs on the feeder ships.
So the 2026 stop is not new in kind. It is new in scale. Earlier stops hit one cargo type, or one routing, or one harbour. This one covers all cargo, from every origin, to three ports, for three months. That tells us Hapag-Lloyd does not expect a quick fix. It is also why the AB Capital warning matters. Its analysts told Splash247 that “the bigger risk is other carriers following Hapag-Lloyd’s lead.” If that happens, a jam on land becomes a much wider problem for Philippine trade.

What forwarders should do this week

Check every open Hapag-Lloyd booking into Luzon. Existing bookings may be cancelled or changed. Do not wait for a notice. Ask your Hapag-Lloyd contact for the status of each booking, and line up a second carrier now.
Expect less space and firmer rates on Philippine imports. Hapag-Lloyd’s volume has to go somewhere. Other carriers into Manila will be choosy about cargo that leaves them with a stranded empty. Shippers should expect fewer spot offers and less room to negotiate into Manila in Q4. That is our expectation, not a published rate.
Treat detention as a real cost line. At the trucker groups’ figure of P1,000 to P3,000 per box per day, a box stuck for the 40 days Zapata described could run up a large bill, depending on free days and tariff. Before booking, ask the carrier three things. Which yard takes the empty? How long are the free days? Will it waive detention if its own yard refuses the box? The 2018 deal shows Philippine carriers have agreed to that last point before. Get it in writing.
Do not assume Batangas or Subic is the way around. Batangas is running normally for ships, and Subic waits are short. But Hapag-Lloyd has closed bookings to both, which shows the empty-return problem is national, not one harbour. If another carrier offers Batangas or Subic as an alternative, check where the empty goes back to first.
Watch the policy side. The PPA wants carriers to open more empty yards. Customs wants long-staying boxes moved offsite. Truckers want carriers to ship surplus empties out. Any of these could ease returns within weeks, if a carrier or terminal commits real space. None of them has a published deadline.

Our call

Our prediction: Hapag-Lloyd will not lift the suspension before its 31 December end date, and there is a real chance it is extended into January. By the end of November, at least one more top-ten container carrier will restrict new bookings into Manila or add a Philippine-specific equipment or congestion surcharge. A surcharge is an extra fee on top of the freight rate.
We also expect the Philippine government to push carriers into opening extra empty yards near Manila before the year-end peak. In 2019 the lines lined up a coordinated move to take out more than 10,000 empties. We think a similar evacuation of empties, led by the lines, is the most likely fix. We expect it to be announced within six weeks.
Forwarders who move first on carrier choice and detention terms will keep their customers’ costs down. Those who wait for the next carrier notice will be paying for other people’s empty boxes.

Sources