Global Ocean & Air Freight — Update for Nov 6, 2025

Ocean markets continue to remain actively flux.  Spot ocean rates jumped higher this week with new carrier GRIs published.  But expectations of many are that these GRIs will trim back lower or fail.  We will know in the next week. 

Schedule reliability is holding at the high 50s to 65% level, better than last year, but as usual for the ocean carriers vary greatly in their performance levels (50% to 90% range) and between trade lanes and service strings.  Red Sea detours via the Cape continue to tie up capacity as all ocean watchers anticipate return to Suez finally in 2026 . And the new U.S.–China “reciprocal” port fee arrangements are adding new cost and plenty of confusion to carriers, NVOs and the customers!

Top 10 things that matter

  1. New GRIs in November: Carriers are filing GRIs as fast as they can and hoping they will stick. If not sticking, then hoping that part of the GRI % will hold. 
  2. Reliability ≈ 58%-65%: Better than 2024, but big gaps remain between best and worst networks. Big variation by carriers and service strings.  Watch them carefully.
  3. Red Sea detours persist: Many carrier service strings still using the Cape of Good Hope routing instead of Suez.  Expect another six months of peace before any big shift back to Suez.  
  4. Suez restart will flood real capacity onto the Asia/Med/Europe markets and to lesser extent for East Coasts of the Americas. 
  5. Panama: water levels good but throughput not yet normal: Conditions improved since 2024, but transit volumes are low. 
  6. U.S.–China port fees started October: New charges apply based on vessel build/ownership/flag; China retaliated with its own fees. Expect more transshipment and string adjustments. Also, expect more China/US tweaking of terms and fees.
  7. North Asia weather/queues: Qingdao shows 2-4 day delays waits and Shanghai with 2-3 day delays.
  8. Colombo congestion: Transshipment volumes at Colombo causing some shifts to bypass that transit port temporarily.
  9. Air cargo steady volumes: September global demand +2.9% compared to last year.
  10. Oversupply vs. discipline: The ocean carrier orderbooks are large with many new builds coming online through the next few years.  Carrier expected to creatively use blank sailings and other “capacity filling” methods to try to keep rates higher or holding. 

 

 

Rate trends by major trade lanes