OOCL saw revenues and volumes post double-digit contractions in 2009, despite a major performance improvement in the fourth quarter.

The Hong Kong-headquartered operator saw total revenue fall year-on-year by 35.2% last year to US$3.8bn as liftings contracted globally by 14% to 4.2m teu, compared to 2008.

In its fourth quarter operational update, the carrier reported its overall load factor across trades in 2009 was 3.8% lower than a year earlier, despite decreasing loadable capacity by 9.6%, while overall revenue per teu fell by 24.7% last year compared to 2008.

The performance of its Asia-Europe service revealed a rapidly changing picture during 2009.

Although revenue fell by almost a half to $688m compared to a year earlier and liftings were down by 16.5% to 678,869teu, figures for the fourth quarter showed signs of recovery with revenue down 15.6% year-on-year and volumes by 6.9% at 174,959teu.