Ocean Container Shipping and Carrier Alliances

The steel box is the most important piece of equipment in the world economy, and the business of carrying it is the most cyclical one in this knowledge base. Since Malcom McLean's Ideal X sailed from Newark to Houston on 26 Apr 1956, the container has cut the cost of moving a manufactured good across an ocean to a few cents or a few dollars per item, and in doing so made global sourcing possible. But the carriers that move the boxes sell a nearly undifferentiated service with very high fixed costs, so prices swing violently with the balance of ships and cargo. In 2021–22 a pandemic demand surge and port congestion took spot rates to roughly five to ten times their pre-pandemic levels and gave the liner industry the largest profits in its history; by 2023 rates had fallen back towards cost; then the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea (from Nov 2023) sent most Asia–Europe ships around the Cape of Good Hope, absorbing capacity and lifting rates again through 2024. In 2026 the industry is pulled between two forces: a record orderbook (~16.2m TEU, ~46.5% of the existing fleet, Linerlytica via Seatrade, Oct 2026, reported) and recurring shocks that soak up ships (the slow, stop-start return to Suez and the 2026 Hormuz crisis). Drewry's World Container Index stood at ~$4,429/FEU on 29 Oct 2026, with Shanghai–Los Angeles ~$7,514/FEU and Shanghai–New York ~$9,631/FEU (single secondary source; verify against Drewry). This section explains the container's economics, ship sizes and the orderbook, slot costs and utilisation, alliances (the end of 2M, Gemini, Ocean and Premier), contract and spot pricing, the 2021–22 boom, overcapacity, bunker fuel and the IMO rules, and the Jones Act. A companion file works through a ship's voyage economics via Suez versus the Cape; a second gives a shipper's checklist for ocean contracts and alliance choice.