Lack of empty boxes hampers Hamburg’s throughput

The Port of Hamburg’s container trade fell by 2.7% in the first half of the year, with dwindling empty box numbers impacting its 4.3m teu throughput.

The number of empty boxes at the German facility fell by 15.6% to 525,000 teu, which subsequently translated to 81% of the total drop. Full containers remained relatively stable with a throughput of 3.8m teu, 0.6% lower than last year’s figure.

There was also a significant drop in transhipment traffic, especially in feeder services to the Baltic, with trade falling by 4.4% to 1.6m teu.