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with nearly 600 container ships still laid up (mostly in Hong Kong Bay) the shipping lines are banding together and making new LOOPS as they like to call them and because the loop is stretched in terms of time taken - they have to add additional vessels to keep the weekly sailing schedule. This is all fine whilst they are trying to pre-guess how much freight will be moving around the world - not easy last year and this year seeming to be no better) but if demand picks up suddenly then there is instant chaos because they cannot just bring additional vessels into the same loops or create new loops as they take weeks to establish. By the time that happens the ports in places like China are already congested. Shipping and airfreight have taken an enormous battering for the whole of 2009 with massive losses across the board - no ones crystal ball is very clear for the foreseeable future. This of course is having a knock on effect with UK freight handling of contrs at an all time low, for this century anyway.
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