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A number of container industry players are now reporting an uplift in cargo volume and generally suggesting that things are getting better. The road to recovery? Well it depends on how you define it.

If you are a container shipping line, yes on certain key trade lanes you can point to a recovery in volumes and a steady push upwards in terms of freight rates. But in reality there is zero chance that in terms of profitability that the good old days are anywhere near back. Quite the opposite.

How strange it would have been just a couple of years back for CMA CGM to talk in positive terms about the major benefits to be derived from a “savings plan” applied throughout the group, a return to profitability in Asia-North Europe trade and the expectation that the group’s other lines will reach breakeven point by the end of 2009.

Today, the reality is that CMA CGM is fighting for its life – at the very least in terms of ownership and retaining the top management structure. It is talking to its bankers about restructuring its $5.6bn debt, there is discussion of the French government injecting funds and according to some news wires there are moves afoot to replace founder and chairman Jack Saade as head of CMA CGM. The latter move is reportedly one being promoted by the group’s lender banks as part of a restructuring programme.

The story is similar elsewhere – Zim, the Israeli container line, has only just been pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy by a rescue package; Maersk Line’s third quarter results for 2009 brought losses for the year to date to $1.54bn and the German line Hapag Lloyd, also the beneficiary of a state aid rescue package, is now implementing pay cuts across the board in its global workforce of 5%-20%.

Where government is involved in “restructuring” or what some might call “resuscitation” there are some industry voices that rightly question whether this is a good thing. Nils Andersen, chief executive of AP-Moller Maersk, speaking recently when Maersk announced its third quarter results, criticised rescues of struggling container lines by governments, suggesting they were “inflicting damage on the healthy part of the industry.

“If you give a struggling company special conditions and keep them afloat, of course you’re inflicting damage on the healthy part of the industry,” he said. “That may make short-term sense but it’s a very dangerous policy.

“We get the feeling that it is risk free to over-order ships and take away the responsibility from market players,” he said of state-sponsored rescues.

CSAV of Chile is another major container line that has been compelled to run for the safety of state aid and would almost certainly have not survived without it.

Maersk is one of only two major container lines, along with Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines, to have successfully raised fresh cash to withstand the slump through conventional debt and share sales. Maersk sold treasury shares to raise $1.8bn and has issued ¢750m of new eurobonds.

The analysts point to a road to recovery in terms of trade volume – but it is still expected to be 2011 before Far East trade volumes return to 2008 levels and in northern Europe this may be as far away as 2013.

Furthermore, while volume recovery may take place no one as yet is forecasting a schedule for rate recovery – freight rates and terminal handling charges. Where such rates have suffered severe falls there is no guarantee they will bounce back according to such a schedule.