BLANK sailings and the cancellation of container shipping services have set the world's idle containership fleet on track to break the three million TEU mark shortly, warns Alphaliner. Alphaliner said that 250 scheduled sailings were withdrawn by container shipping lines in the second quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic, knocking the steam out of demand, meaning the idle fleet will sail past the previous high of 2.46 million TEU in early March, reported Seatrade Maritime News, Colchester, UK. "No market segment will be spared, with capacity cuts announced across almost all key routes. Apart from the Asia-Europe, Asia-North America and trans-Atlantic routes, carriers have also implemented capacity reductions in South America, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, Africa, and Oceania," Alphaliner said. "While the larger ships will be cascaded to replace smaller units on the remaining strings, carriers will be forced to idle a large part of their operated tonnage. This will affect all size segments in the coming weeks." One-third of the inactive fleet is in yards for scrubber retrofits with Alphaliner saying 1.02 million TEU of capacity is currently in shipyards for such installations.