There are no more free rides for containers going back to the home ports, because the shipping container companies can no longer afford to do that. They have to cut costs, cut labor, cut crews, cut fuel consumption, and cut the number of ships that are sailing in their fleets.
But, I must warn you that the international shipping industry will return, it always does as recessions end and commerce and trade increases. The same goes for the air cargo industry, the trucking industry, and the rail industry in the United States and abroad.
Some very wise international shipping companies are purchasing new ships that are more energy efficient and use less fuel, and can carry over 15,000 cargo containers at a time. And they are doing this at the bottom of the recession, even as some would consider this a very big risk. But in reality it is very wise.
Getting rid of older ships that are inefficient and cannot carry the number of cargo containers needed in such a robust global economy makes sense. When the economy was batting 1000 every ship no matter how inefficient was running full speed ahead. This did not help the international shipping companies that were using these old ships, some of them were built over 50 years ago. So, which companies will emerge winners in this shipping industry in the future? It will be those companies that did not let the global economic meltdown scare them into canceling orders for new ships. Please consider all this.
Lance Winslow is a retired franchisor - Lance Winslow's Bio. Lance Winslow is formerly the CEO of WashGuys family of franchises for instance one of Lance Winslow's favorite companies on the team; http://www.windowwashguys.com/links.shtml/.