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Hamburg (dpa / lno) - Despite a foreseeable billion profit in the Corona year 2020, the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd is hoping for the overheated container transport market to calm down as quickly as possible.
"We want normality, because in the medium term it is important for us that everyone continues to transport as much goods as possible in containers," said Hapag-Lloyd boss Rolf Habben Jansen on Thursday evening.
But this also requires competitive and more sustainable conditions in two to five years.
Hapag-Lloyd is currently profiting from the massive demand for container transport, said Habben Jansen.
However, he also pointed out that in the past ten years many a dry spell had to be overcome.
Container shipping is currently experiencing an unprecedented boom.
Because of the corona pandemic, 20 percent of the demand for products has shifted from the first to the second half of 2020 and has accordingly affected transport, said Habben Jansen.
The reason is that due to the lack of opportunities due to the Corona requirements, people have now invested their money in goods such as furniture, entertainment devices or home improvement supplies instead of services.
The result: The demand for container capacity to transport these things went through the roof.
Habben Jansen said he believed this phenomenon would pass.
He just doesn't know exactly when.
"It will probably take a few months."
For the shipping company, the worldwide rush for transport capacities would also have resulted in a number of problems.
Many ports and container terminals are now so overloaded that there are significant delays in the ships.
The delays on the Hapag-Lloyd ships in January on the Transpacific and Far East routes averaged 250 and 170 hours, respectively.
This, in turn, resulted in a considerable shortage of containers, the average useful life of which per turn increased from 26 to 29 days - which at Hapag-Lloyd means an additional requirement of 35,000 standard containers (TEU) for each extra day.
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Hapag-Lloyd recently announced that the shipping company is expecting earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of at least 1.25 billion euros for the first quarter - after 160 million euros in the same period last year.
For the full year 2020, Hapag-Lloyd increased earnings before interest and taxes by around 60 percent to around 1.3 billion euros, according to preliminary figures from the end of January.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210219-99-507589 / 3