Transpacific pays carriers $1.30 a mile — four times Europe

Carriers are earning up to $1.30 per nautical mile on spot shipments from China to the US west coast, making the transpacific by far the most lucrative major container trade, according to Alphaliner's latest analysis of spot freight revenue per nautical mile.

The gap with other trades is widening. Shanghai–USWC spot rates have held between 3,063 and 3,687 points on the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) since the start of July. At roughly $7,500 per 40ft, that works out to about $1.30 for each of the 5,775 nautical miles of a voyage to Los Angeles.

That's still below the Covid-era peak of 5,110 SCFI points, recorded in January 2022. But rates are now at their highest since July 2024, and Alphaliner says they're comparable with pandemic-boom levels. The east coast is doing its bit too. Spot rates on Shanghai–US East Coast have stayed above $10,000 per 40ft since late August — about $0.96 per nautical mile to New York via the Panama Canal, on par with the $10,000–$12,000 range seen between August 2021 and June 2022.

How are carriers responding?

With tonnage, predictably. In late August MSC upgraded its Asia–USWC Sentosa service, swapping 15,000 teu vessels for ships of around 23,600 teu. Zim, which already deploys 52% of its capacity on the trade, is preparing to launch another China–California service, the ZX3, next month.

Europe, meanwhile, is the poor relation. Even using the shorter Suez Canal routing, Far East–Europe revenue sits at $0.34 per nautical mile to Rotterdam and $0.50 to Genoa. Carriers still diverting around the Cape of Good Hope to North Europe earn $0.26 — roughly 24% less, thanks to the extra 3,309 nautical miles sailed. That's a quarter of what the Pacific pays.

Latin America sits in between. Shanghai–Santos currently generates $0.42 per nautical mile, and Shanghai–Manzanillo in Mexico yields $0.91. Both have been volatile over the past six months, though. Spot rates to Santos have fallen to about half their late-August level, while Mexico returns have swung between $0.70 and $1.10 per nautical mile.

What does this change for shippers and forwarders?

For shippers on Asia–Europe lanes, not much comfort: weak per-mile revenue there strengthens carriers' incentive to keep redeploying ships toward the Pacific, which could tighten European capacity further. For transpacific shippers, the message is starker — there is no spare tonnage coming to the rescue.

Alphaliner attributes the strong spot rates to the continued absence of spare capacity among the major carriers, with port congestion and schedule disruption preventing fleets from operating efficiently. Despite carriers beginning to return to Suez routings on Asia–Europe services, the consultancy sees no immediate signs of overcapacity.

It adds one caveat worth remembering: revenue per nautical mile doesn't tell the whole story. Canal charges and insurance premiums also shape the economics of individual trades, so a high per-mile figure isn't pure margin.

With Zim's ZX3 launching next month and MSC's upsized Sentosa ships now in rotation, capacity on the Pacific keeps building. Whether demand absorbs it — or rates finally bend — is the question the next round of SCFI prints will answer.