Global port congestion is hiding a shipping capacity crisis

Global port congestion is at its highest level since the pandemic. Thousands of ships are waiting days to berth, and that delay carries a real cost for the entire logistics chain. But that same congestion is having an effect almost nobody mentions. It mainly benefits carriers: it’s keeping freight rates higher than they should be. The industry ordered a huge number of new vessels a few years ago, and those ships are already reaching the market. If it weren’t for the current congestion, that wave of new capacity would have already crashed rates. Whoever pays the freight would already be paying less. Instead, that capacity is stuck, unable to compete for cargo, and the price stays artificially high. Understanding this matters, because the situation won’t last.

Global port congestion, in numbers

According to Sea-Intelligence data, 6.6 % of the entire global container ship fleet is, in practice, out of circulation today. Not because it’s damaged or idle, but because it’s stuck waiting at some port. That’s triple what was normal before the pandemic. In volume, it amounts to 2.3 million containers of capacity that simply aren’t available to anyone, not for loading and not for quoting.

Think of it this way: it’s as if the world’s sixth-largest carrier had disappeared overnight. That capacity still exists, it’s just immobilized, and as long as it stays that way, whoever books freight doesn’t benefit from it.

The real story behind the congestion

Here’s the part that actually matters: congestion isn’t the whole problem, it’s only half the story. The other half is good news for whoever pays the freight, even if it doesn’t feel that way yet. Carriers ordered a huge number of new vessels a few years ago, when the market was booming. Those ships are already arriving, and will keep arriving through 2026. If all that new capacity entered the market without congestion to absorb it, available space would spike overnight, and rates would crash in favor of whoever moves cargo.

In other words, today’s congestion is functioning, without anyone planning it this way, as a buffer for carriers. It delays the moment when all that excess capacity truly hits the market. And with it, the moment when rates could drop for whoever pays the freight.

That relief for carriers has an expiration date

What matters is that this buffer isn’t permanent. Everything points to it deflating soon, which should eventually ease costs for whoever moves cargo. Two things are pushing it in that direction. First, many carriers had stopped using the Suez Canal because of the security situation in the Red Sea. They were sailing around South Africa instead, which lengthened voyages and “tied up” more ships for longer. Now, close to a fifth of that capacity is already returning to the short route through Suez. Second, Sea-Intelligence calculates that the congestion itself could normalize within four to six months.

Once that buffer deflates, the capacity that’s “hidden” today will hit the market all at once. That will coincide with the new ships still arriving, and should push rates down.

That combined effect is exactly what could finally ease freight costs for whoever moves cargo, far more than the end of congestion alone.

What this could mean in 2027

If the return to Suez completes fully, Sea-Intelligence projects a scenario that actually favors whoever pays the freight. Transport demand could drop by close to 8.7 % during the first half of 2027, even if container trade keeps growing normally. Translated into what matters to whoever moves cargo: lower relative demand combined with more available ships is, historically, the exact combination that pushes rates down hard, and fast.

What this has to do with South America

Today, global port congestion is concentrated mainly in Asia, at ports like Shanghai, Ningbo, and Singapore, where ships are arriving with delays of several days. But ocean shipping works as a connected network. Maersk’s CEO said it directly in August: port capacity is already insufficient in several regions, and he specifically mentioned South America’s east coast. A delay that starts at an Asian port can end up affecting the entire route over here, simply because carriers reorganize their schedules to make up time.

As we already explained when analyzing why ocean freight rates keep rising, cargo almost never waits for the market to get cheap, it ships when the business needs it to. That’s why, more than the timing of the shipment, what’s really worth understanding is how temporary the current rate level is. A fixed-rate annual contract is normally a reasonable tool for protecting against spot market volatility. What’s different about this moment is that several analysts, including Sea-Intelligence, agree the pressure is moving in a single direction: downward, and on a relatively short timeline. At Fenix, we track this kind of signal closely to read the market cycle as precisely as possible. That’s how we support each client with up-to-date information when structuring their next freight contract.

Sources

• Naucher — Port congestion absorbs 6.6% of container ship overcapacity (Spanish)
• MasContainer — Congestion could anticipate a capacity shock (Spanish)
• Cámara Aduanera de Chile — Maritime congestion in Asia tests Chile’s logistics planning (Spanish)
• Cadena de Suministro — Port congestion delays reduce global capacity (Spanish)