Fedespedi, 70% of our companies reported a drop in turnover due to the crisis

The report,which follows and updates with the latest available data the first report released last July, highlights that the impact of pandemic on international shipping companies is and, from an internal survey carried out by the Centre for its members, it appears that about 70% of companies have decrease in turnover during 2020. In in particular, 36.4% of companies experienced a contraction in between -11 and -30%.

With regard to the 2021 forecasts, the sentiment of the shipping companies is oriented to a large majority (62%) towards cautious optimism, with forecasts of substantial stability (38%) or slight recovery in economic activity, driven by from exports. Only 9% expect further sharp degrowth of the cycle.

With regard to the excursus on the situation of the maritime transport, the report explains that in the first nine months of the year, world container traffic was around 122 million teu, with a decrease of -3.5% on the same period of 2019. In this context, intra-regional traffic showed greater resilience with volumes substantially unchanged for European trades (-0.9%). In addition, the report shows that the trend of the freight is moving in the opposite direction to the traffic of the containers, recording an increase in the price level of almost +200% from April to November 2020 (Med Sea route). The document stresses that it is "a real "bubble" of the nuts", fuelled certainly by the increase in the demand for transport, but above all by the reduction in the supply made by shipping companies through blank sailing policies.

With regard to containerised traffic in the main ports italian containers, in the period January-September of this year it is a decrease of -11%, with negative peaks in La Spice (-21.1%) and Genoa (-13.1%); instead, it holds Trieste (1.1%). In the port of Savona, which recorded +142.5% thanks to the at the beginning of the operational activities of the new APM terminal of Go. Better performances, on the other hand, for Mediterranean ports (-2,9%) and for the world's leading ports (-2.3%).

Finally, the report of the Fedespedi Study Centre underlines that if the air freighter remains the sector most affected by the crisis, however, the industry's loss estimates show an improvement: -1.5% in 2020 in terms of CTK (cargo &mail t-Km) compared to -16.8% expected in July, while in 2021 a recovery (+13.1%), thanks to demand from e-commerce and electronic consumer goods. Scarcity due to the collapse of passenger flights, continues to be to have a heavy impact on the speed of recovery of the air freight traffic. This trend is confirmed from the performance of the main Italian airports: in the first 10 months in 2020 traffic fell by -26.4% (-60.6% Roma FCO, -53.7% in Bergamo Orio al Serio, -12% Milano MPX). In October, however, there was growth of +12.8% on September, where Milan MPX stands out with +19.3%.