What to expect from the Chinese New Year 2024

About the Chinese New Year 2024
The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, falls on February 10, 2024, marking the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. This auspicious occasion is celebrated not only in China but also in many other countries with significant Chinese populations. In China, the Spring Festival is a public holiday, and festivities typically last for 15 days, culminating in the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the lunar new year. During this period, businesses and schools shut down, allowing people to reunite with their families and partake in various traditional customs and activities that symbolize good luck, prosperity, and happiness for the coming year.

Potential impacts will be

• CAPACITY SHORTAGE: due to blank sailing/flight cancelation
• CARRIER CAPACITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY: Overall capacity will drop from week 2 onwards with severe shortfalls expected in weeks 5 and 6 when demand will be strong due to the pre-Chinese New Year cargo rush. Although the weekly capacity will rebound from week 7, the regularity of the FE-North Europe services will not be fully restored until either additional capacity is being injected or the Red Sea passage is secure again, with regular blank sailings to be expected.
• DOMESTIC TRUCKING RESOURCE: Tight trucking resource is expected in view of following 2 factors: Since no travel ban in cross province travel, assume more drivers will be back to hometown and have a longer Chinese New Year holiday with family. The trucking companies expect more drivers to start returning to their hometown from WK2 2024.
• TERMINAL MANPOWER SHORTAGE: It’s an tradition in China that people shall go back to hometown to having Chinese Near Year holiday with family. Take Shanghai as example, we have over 10 million permanent residents from other provinces or cities, but they are working or living in Shanghai. The manpower impact normally will start from 3-4 weeks before holiday and back to normal after 1-2 weeks after holiday.

ONE special impact to take note

• THE RED SEA SITUATION is something our customers should take into consideration. Combined with typical blank sailing/flight cancelation around CNY, tight capacity, equipment shortage as well as increasing risk of delays and disruptions are expected due to the ripple effect of the red sea situation. Customers are recommended to evaluate their inventory level, and prioritize transport planning for longer transit time if the red sea situation continues.