Ocean carriers are tightening booking conditions for India exporters shipping to Europe and North America, upping the penalties for canceling orders and not delivering containers.

They come amid rebounding laden container volumes from India to the United States, which last month registered the first year-over-year increase since January, according to PIERS, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global. Container spot rates to the US East Coast have soared as a result, up $1,700 per FEU from the end of June, according to Platts, also part of S&P Global.

Hapag-Lloyd has been one of the most aggressive ocean carriers, tripling its fees from $100 per container to $300 per box for all types of cargo. Indian shippers will incur the increased levy for bookings canceled within 14 days of a vessel’s estimated time of departure (ETD) and/or rolled within 10 days of the original ETD, according to a Hapag advisory.

The new policy takes effect July 22 for all export trades out of India, except on US trades, which takes effect from Aug. 7.

“The revised charges apply to bookings cancelled or rolled over on or after the relevant effective date, irrespective of when the booking was created,” Hapag-Lloyd said.

Sources said other major liners, including Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Co., Cosco Shipping and Ocean Network Express, are also charging higher penalties, now between $100 to $200 per container, up from the more common $50 to $100 range.

Carriers have shifted from seeking these penalties on a per-booking basis to a “per-container” basis.

Shippers complain that carriers are canceling bookings without real-time updates, relaying them to cargo agents and/or container freight stations that handle the last leg of logistics, which they say causes chaos and widespread disputes.

Container booking cancellations and no-shows are not new in the industry, but they hit harder during times of tight capacity. Carriers routinely overbook their vessels by up to 30% to sail them out as full as possible. Sources favorable to shippers say there is no penalty on carriers that leave containers behind on the dock, an ever more frequent behavior in India ports over the past month. Local forwarder sources say premier services from India to the US East Coast and North Europe are already sold out through late August.

“While higher [booking] cancellation charges and tighter space allocations are a reflection of constrained capacity on certain trade lanes, the bigger challenge for exporters is execution certainty,” Ashish Sheth, chairman and managing director of Sarjak Container Lines, told the Journal of Commerce. “Businesses today need greater confidence that their cargo will move as planned because delays or rollovers can have a cascading impact on production schedules, inventory planning and customer commitments.”

Several carriers are also known to have tempered their spot booking policies by suspending space and equipment guarantees. Sources describe this as a “tactic” to grab any other available higher-yield or contract cargo.

Additionally, carriers have raised container overweight surcharges. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are now levying $500 per TEU on Indian export boxes heavier than their prescribed weight thresholds. This is up from the usual $200 per TEU.

As ocean rates climb and surcharge risks amplify, Indian exporters of low-value freight have either suspended or downsized their shipment bookings, according to sources. Low-value containerized exports from India primarily include stones, ceramic tiles and agricultural products.