Container equipment imbalance is a structural feature of global trade rather than an occasional glitch: because China and Asia broadly export more by container volume than they import, empty containers accumulate in destination markets like North America and Europe and need to be repositioned back to Asia, at a cost carriers factor into overall network economics rather than charging directly per reposition move.
This imbalance tends to worsen during periods of strong one-directional demand growth (heavy export volume from China without matching import growth back) and during disruption events that strand equipment in the wrong place — a vessel rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, for instance, delays that ship's containers from returning to Asia on their normal cycle, tightening availability at Chinese load ports in the interim.
For a shipper, acute container shortage at origin shows up as reduced booking availability or, in severe cases, equipment-related surcharges separate from the base freight rate — a signal that is worth distinguishing from a simple vessel-capacity shortage, since the underlying cause and likely duration differ.
We track equipment availability at the specific origin ports we book through, separately from vessel space, since the two can tighten independently of each other and a booking can face either constraint, or both, depending on current network conditions.