Maersk and MSC Announce Six Transpacific Golden Week Blank Sailings

Two carriers have now published Golden Week capacity cuts on the Transpacific. MSC announced blanks on its Asia to US West Coast network on August 26. Maersk issued a Transpacific schedule advisory on August 28 covering four voyages across its TP8 and TP12 services.

Six sailings are affected. Two of them depart in November, from Los Angeles and Newark, for a holiday that ends on October 7.

The Transpacific blanks announced so far

Carrier	Service	Voyage or week	Direction	Ports	Departure
Maersk	TP8	640E	Asia to US West Coast	Blanked from Busan	9 October 2026
Maersk	TP12	641E	Asia to US East Coast	Blanked from Ningbo	9 October 2026
Maersk	TP8	644W	US West Coast to Asia	Blanked from Los Angeles	1 November 2026
Maersk	TP12	647W	US East Coast to Asia	Blanked from Newark	18 November 2026
MSC	Orient	GO640N / Week 40	Asia to US West Coast	Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Long Beach	Week 40
MSC	Pearl	GO641N / Week 41	Asia to US West Coast	Haiphong, Yantian, Long Beach, Oakland	Week 41

Transpacific Golden Week blank sailings announced by Maersk (28 August 2026) and MSC (26 August 2026). Maersk departure dates are pro forma. MSC voyage numbers and sailing weeks are from its Golden Week advisory; service rotations are from MSC’s published Transpacific network.

The two carriers published at different levels of detail, and that changes how you check a booking. Maersk named voyage numbers and pro forma departure dates, so a booking either sits on 640E or it does not. MSC named the service, voyage number and sailing week, but did not publish a port-specific departure date in the advisory. The affected sailings are Orient GO640N in week 40 and Pearl GO641N in week 41.

Two of the six are November departures from US ports

Golden Week runs from October 1 to October 7, with make-up working days on September 20 and October 10. The eastbound blanks sit close to that window. TP8 640E and TP12 641E were both due to depart on October 9, two days after the holiday ends.

The westbound blanks sit much further out. TP8 644W was scheduled to leave Los Angeles on November 1. TP12 647W was scheduled to leave Newark on November 18, six weeks after the holiday ends.

Those are US export legs. A US shipper booking to Asia for mid-November is inside the affected window right now, and is unlikely to be watching a holiday announcement filed under Golden Week. The same is true of anyone planning empty equipment moves back to Asia on those strings.

What an inducement call commits the carrier to

Maersk states that inducement calls will be made on alternative sailings to ensure port coverage. This is the same wording the carrier used in its 2025 Golden Week advisory, so it reflects standing practice rather than a change in approach.

The operational consequence is worth being precise about. Maersk has committed to maintaining port coverage through inducement calls on alternative sailings, but the advisory does not identify the covering vessel or call for each affected port. MSC frames its position similarly, telling customers they can continue to book while it arranges contingency plans with alternative services.

For a booking already in the system, the practical question is not whether the carrier has a plan. It is which vessel your containers ended up on, and what that did to the ETA. That answer arrives at different times from different carriers, and rarely on the day the advisory is published.

If you are matching October and November bookings against blank sailing announcements from more than one carrier this month, walk through how ops teams track rolled containers and revised ETAs across carriers in one view.

Why the cuts land on a network with less slack than usual

MSC attributed its decision to an anticipated slowdown in demand during and after the holiday. On the demand side, Freightos head of research Judah Levine has pointed to National Retail Federation forecasts showing US ocean import volumes broadly flat in September before declining in October, while cautioning that tariff-related front-loading may have already pulled volume forward and could disturb the usual seasonal shape.

The supply side is where the cuts bite harder than the voyage count suggests. Congestion is already absorbing capacity that the nominal fleet figures still count as available, so removing scheduled sailings compounds a network that is running with less usable slack than the schedules imply.

Asia to Europe is running a separate programme

MSC has also blanked Asia to Europe voyages for the same period, naming the Jade in week 39, the Swan and the Britannia in week 40, and the Lion in week 41. Hapag-Lloyd cancelled three Asia to Europe sailings earlier in August. Those cuts sit on a different lane with a different booking cycle and should not be read into Transpacific capacity.

What to confirm this week

Eastbound October bookings. Check whether cargo is loaded to TP8 640E or TP12 641E, and which sailing it rolls to if so.
MSC week 40 and week 41 USWC bookings. Check whether the booking is on Orient GO640N in week 40 or Pearl GO641N in week 41.
Westbound November bookings. US export cargo routed on TP8 out of Los Angeles around November 1, or TP12 out of Newark around November 18, needs a confirmed alternative.
Ports covered by inducement. Ask which vessel is covering each omitted call and whether that call is confirmed for your booking specifically.
Cutoffs. Documentation and gate cutoffs on the covering sailings will not match the ones published for the blanked voyages.

The current list is a snapshot of the announced programme. Confirm affected voyages and alternative sailings against the latest carrier schedules before committing cargo.

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