Trade levels may be recovering from the global financial crisis that hit shipping lines so hard, but Japan’s NYK Line has been burned once and plans to lower its future risks by halving its fleet size over the next five years.
“The problem lies in having an excess of long-term fixed assets,” said NYK President Yasumi Kudo.
“We must exercise constant care to minimise our long-term fixed assets, overcome any deficiency in such assets through short-term lease and thereby maintain our downward flexibility at all times.
“The part of our container vessels fleet, which constitutes such long-term fixed assets, will be slimmed down to half the number of vessels and its total space capacity will be trimmed to two-thirds by 2015.”
Mr Kudo said NYK Line’s move does not signal an end to its ownership of container vessels and planes, reported Emirates Business.
“The recent recovery in the air cargo transport sector has been accompanied by a sharp rise in customer enquiries and contracts for charter flights,” he said.
“But a lack of adequate hardware will make it impossible to properly cope with such a demand.”
