News
Sea-Intelligence has analyzed the displacement of global vessel capacity, tracking over 16,000 vessel transfers across 2024 and 2025. The data indicates that the cascading effect-where tonnage shifts from primary to secondary trade lanes-has entered a distinct new phase in the second quarter of 2025. While 2024 was characterized by an injection of capacity to the Asia-Europe trade to manage the Red Sea crisis, current data shows that it has reached saturation, pushing excess tonnage into secondary trade lanes.
The data also highlights a structural shift on the Asia-Mediterranean trade. Previously a primary absorber of displaced Asia-North Europe capacity in 2024, it is now actively cascading tonnage out to other lanes. The Mediterranean-North America east coast trade emerged as the top net gainer in the second quarter of 2025, absorbing a net 127,686 TEUs of cascaded capacity. The number was driven by 178,189 TEUs of cascaded capacity from the Asia-Mediterranean trade, with a transfer of 11 vessels of 14,000 to 15,000 TEUs.
