According to the chief executive of Mediterranean Shipping Company Mr Gianluigi Aponte “shippers are not that deep” and had abused the overcapacity in order to stir up price competition.

As reported in the FT.com web site he said that customers of shipping lines had created container shipping’s deepest crisis and contributed to persistent and damaging price instability in the sector.

Shippers had campaigned the EU to ban the conference system a move which Mr Aponte deemed as a “grave  error”. The removal of the conference system would “create instability in the future for the European and worldwide economy”

He maintained that the bigger operators would recover their losses in 2010 which does seem to indicate that the rash of surcharges - under whatever guise the lines name them – will continue.