A Booking Is Not a Berth: Carriers Are Skipping Shanghai, and What East China Shippers Should Do About It
Some East China exporters have run into something counterintuitive recently: the booking was confirmed, the container was stuffed and gated in, and then the carrier announced the vessel would no longer call at Shanghai.
This is not an isolated case. HiFleet, a schedule monitoring service, compared two versions of vessel schedules covering 4-15 September and counted 57 Shanghai call omissions in its sample, plus 18 calls replaced by other ports. The list of affected carriers is long: ONE temporarily omitted Shanghai on 11 sailings of its EC2 and EC4 Asia-US East Coast services, rerouting the cargo via Busan; Maersk removed Shanghai from the regular rotation of its Dragon Australia service altogether, transferring Shanghai-Sydney and Melbourne volumes to another loop; Hapag-Lloyd's week 37 operational update showed Shanghai omissions across Europe, US East Coast, US West Coast and Africa services; and an ANL service under CMA CGM dropped both Shanghai and Ningbo, picking up Shekou instead.
Behind these omissions lies an unusual congestion episode in East China. Repeated typhoons disrupted port operations, and according to Linerlytica, containership capacity waiting at anchorage worldwide at one point exceeded 4 million TEU, surpassing the pandemic-era peak of 2022, with roughly half of it concentrated in East Asia around Shanghai and Ningbo. The seven-day average waiting time at Shanghai exceeded 4 days, with some Waigaoqiao terminals stretching past 9 days; yard utilization at Ningbo's Meishan terminal approached full capacity, and the port has asked carriers to keep local export rollovers within 10%. The timing makes it worse: only three normal working days separate the Mid-Autumn Festival from the National Day Golden Week, leaving ports almost no continuous window to clear the backlog. Most observers expect congestion to persist into mid-to-late October.
For shippers, the combination of port omissions and congestion boils down to one reality: Shanghai on the schedule is not necessarily the Shanghai that gets executed. A booking confirmation is only the first step; whether the nominated vessel actually calls, and which routing your cargo ultimately takes, are both open questions. This matters most for cargo that is already booked, stuffed or gated in - once the vessel omits the port, rebooking onto the next sailing versus transshipping through another port involves very different timelines, cut-offs and costs.
Drawing on recent operational experience, here are five recommendations for East China exporters:
First, treat the booking confirmation as something to verify, not as a final plan. For sailings from late September through October, confirm with the carrier or its agent before trucking the container whether the nominated vessel still calls at your intended loading port. Do not rely solely on the original booking confirmation.
Second, when an omission is announced, confirm the alternative routing immediately. Will the cargo roll to the next sailing, or transship via Busan, Hong Kong or Shekou? The two options differ significantly in timing and cost. Ask the carrier for a written disposition covering the rebooking arrangement and responsibility for any additional charges.
Third, recalculate the ETA and inform your customers. Even when a substitute arrangement is offered, arrival at destination is usually later than planned. For orders with contractual deadlines, communicate early to avoid disputes.
Fourth, evaluate nearby alternative ports. In the current congestion, vessels at Qingdao waited only about a day on average - far better than Shanghai or Ningbo. For time-sensitive cargo, compare schedules and total costs from Qingdao or Lianyungang in advance, and make any port change decision before the container is gated in, not after.
Fifth, build buffer into pre-holiday shipments. With cargo surging ahead of the holidays and ports restricting intake, rollovers, late departures and rising container storage fees are all plausible. Book critical shipments for gate-in at least a week earlier than usual and build flexibility into your quotations.
A-Choice is based in Xuzhou and serves inland East China shippers of non-ferrous metals, fertilizer, timber logs and project cargo, tracking day-to-day conditions across Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao and Lianyungang. If your upcoming shipment involves Shanghai or Ningbo sailings, share your port of loading and destination with us and our operations team will suggest alternatives that account for the current omissions and congestion.
