The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) report provides figures on the impact of COVID-19 on shipping traffic; it is based on solid vessel movements statistics showing the port call trends without interpreting the statistical data.
By analysing ship calls at EU ports it was found that the number of ships calls at EU ports declined by 10% in the 2020 compared to 2019. When comparing year 2021 with 2019, it was observed the number of ships calls at EU ports increased by 3.2%. The number of ships calls in March 2022 increased by 8% compared to the same month in 2019. The most significant decrease in the number of ships calls was detected for Containerships, Refrigerated cargo ships, and Vehicle carriers. Countries still heavily impacted in 2022 are Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden. The detailed statistics on impact on ship calls to EU ports per Member State and per ship type can be found in section 3 of the report.
In 2022, there was a general increase of the values of port calls worldwide under EU flag until February, but in March, the trend inverted for many countries and ship types (or at least deaccelerated the recovery), probably affecting more the tonnages travelling over sea than the number of calls. The number of port calls (worldwide) observed is above the pre-pandemic year of 2019 for almost all the EU-MS flagged fleets by February 2022.
For the report of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) on the COVID-19 Impact on Shipping (1st quarter 2022), please see here.