Slot Charter

A slot charter is the charter of a fixed number of container slots, measured in TEU, on a containership rather than the whole vessel. Liner operators use slot charters and the broader vessel-sharing agreement to buy capacity on partners’ ships without deploying their own tonnage on every string. The slot charterer issues its own bills of lading to its shippers and is the contracting carrier to them, while remaining a charterer in relation to the vessel owner or operator. BIMCO publishes the Slothire standard slot charter form. The slot charterer pays a slot rate per TEU and bears the commercial risk of filling its allocation.