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Finding Predictability in Blank Sailings Surge

[ February 25, 2026   //   ]

Blank sailings are surging across major trade lanes, underscoring how schedule volatility is reshaping operational planning for ports and inland operators.

Data from maritime consultancy Drewry show a 122 percent month-over-month increase in blank sailings on key east-west routes in February, effectively doubling withdrawn capacity compared with the previous period.

While blank sailings are common around seasonal events such as Lunar New Year, industry executives say the latest spike reflects deeper structural pressures.

Trade flows are being buffeted by geopolitical tensions, renewed tariff disputes between the United States and China, inflation that is dampening consumer demand and uncertainty tied to the energy transition. Together, those factors are complicating demand forecasting and weakening the reliability of traditional sailing schedules.

For ports, terminals and hinterland operators, the issue is less about overall capacity levels and more about variability.

“Schedule information is the backbone of efficient port calls,” said Sjoerd de Jager, managing director and co-founder of PortXchange. “In volatile conditions, static ETAs become outdated almost immediately. If the industry wants to reduce waste, it needs to move from static planning to predictive, continuously updated coordination.”

Frequent sailing adjustments can create cascading effects across supply chains. A canceled sailing can disrupt berth windows. Delayed arrivals can upend yard planning, while barge and rail connections fall out of sequence. The result can be idle assets, compressed cargo peaks, underutilized labor and higher emissions.

Industry analysts say predictability is becoming more valuable than volume.

Estimated times of arrival, or ETAs, have traditionally been treated as fixed reference points, often calculated once and updated manually if conditions change. That approach can fail to account for port congestion, weather disruptions, lock restrictions, water levels and knock-on effects across networks.

As schedule variance builds, waiting times increase, fuel consumption rises and emissions follow.

The recent jump in blank sailings suggests volatility is becoming a structural feature of the market rather than a short-term anomaly, prompting greater interest in predictive scheduling tools.

PortXchange said it has developed an artificial intelligence-based ETA system, ETAPredictor, in collaboration with a major inland operator. The company said the system recalculates arrival times in real time using vessel-level and historical network data, reducing ETA prediction errors by more than 50 percent within six months of deployment.

According to the company, improved forecast accuracy translated into better asset utilization, fewer idle towboats and more stable workforce planning.

As maritime networks face continued disruption, operators that can quickly adapt arrival forecasts may be better positioned to stabilize berth windows, labor allocation and hinterland connections.

“Organizations relying on static schedules and manual coordination will continue to absorb the cost of unpredictability,” de Jager said. “The choice is simple: absorb disruption or anticipate it.”

Shipping has long been cyclical, but executives say the baseline level of uncertainty appears to be rising. In that environment, they argue, predictive coordination is emerging as a competitive differentiator rather than a marginal operational upgrade.

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