HONG KONG's OOCL has announced that it is limiting acceptance of online cargo booking to no more than eight weeks and in some circumstances less than that because of "tight space" in the Canada-US export market.

OOCL is now limiting acceptance of online booking requests via oocl.com or cargosmart.com to eight weeks, reported American Shipper. Shippers booking by phone or e-mail face an even more restrictive window of four weeks.

"We have for the past few months experienced an increase in closed vessels and cancelled bookings that are in part due to overbooking and customer multiple carrier booking activities in order to secure space. We believe our prudent move to limit the booking acceptance window to this eight-week period will benefit you the customer as we improve our space management," the carrier said.

A recent paper from the World Shipping Council (WSC) on US exports said while carriers are planning modest volume increase for both imports and exports, "given the market conditions and operating environment expected in 2010, challenges will continue to exist for carriers, and may arise for some export shippers."