Transpacific Westbound (North America → Asia) Shipment Tracker

Repositioning economics: empties pool at import-heavy coastal hubs, while ag exporters inland need them hundreds of miles away — and carriers sometimes prefer evacuating empties to Asia fast over waiting for an inland export load. Booking earlier, accepting earliest-return-date discipline, and loading near the port all raise your equipment odds on this lane.

Published schedules say 15–25 days depending on port pair, often with lighter schedules than the headhaul. Reality adds origin dwell, destination clearance and the lane's specific friction (the structural fact is imbalance: this is the backhaul leg, so rates are lower but blank sailings hit it first when carriers trim capacity). Your own log is the honest answer: after 15–20 shipments the actual door-to-door distribution — including the tail — is sitting in your CSV export.

Two to four weeks earlier than your slack-season habit — agricultural export season (US harvest, Q4) tightens equipment availability inland — empty containers gravitate to where imports unload, not where exports load. Booking lead time is the cheapest insurance this lane sells: the shippers who get rolled in peak are overwhelmingly the ones booking at their off-season cadence into a peak-season vessel.

The parts carriers don't publish: door-to-door (not port-to-port) times including your own clearance and dray, performance across ALL your carriers on one lane side by side, and the exception pattern (rolls, holds, equipment) by season. Carrier data tells you about their network; your log tells you about your lane.