DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONTAINER OWNER AND SHIPPING LINE

A Container Owner is someone who OWNSthe container that they provide to the various customers.. This container owner could be either a Shipping Line like Hapag Lloyd, or could be a Container Leasing Company (leaseco) like Triton Container..

Companies like Hapag Lloyd, have their own fleet of containers and they use it for their own shipping requirements globally.. However no single shipping line in the world can operate with only their own fleet of container and usually lease containers from leasecos from time to time depending on the demand..

Companies like Triton build containers for the purpose of “leasing” it to out to various shipping lines around the world..

A Shipping Line is a company that operates the ships that actually carry the containers (owned or leased) and cargo from load port to discharge port..

Example : Hapag Lloyd, Maersk, China Shipping.. Some of the shipping lines have container services covering most ports of the world, and it is common that they might run into a situation where by they have shortage of containers at certain locations or they might have requirement of certain types of containers (Flat Racks, Open Tops etc) at certain locations..

This is where container owners or leasecos like Triton, CAI, Florens etc come into play..

These leasecos provide equipment in demand locations on various lease terms (short term, long term, master lease etc)..

There are also some smaller short sea/regional shipping lines that operate solely on leased equipment as they don’t want to go through the expense of owning of the equipment, maintenance and repair, relocation etc..