Yang Ming suspends EDI scheduling services as THE Alliance preps new network

With just a few months before the new ocean carrier vessel sharing agreement THE Alliance, of which Yang Ming is a member, is set to launch, work still needs to be done to finalize port rotations and vessel deployment plans.    Clarification: Yang Ming was only referring to a suspension of EDI for sailing schedules because of concerns about reliability of data related to new services going into effect after April 1, and was not referring to other EDI services.

   Taiwanese ocean carrier Yang Ming Marine Transport Co. has suspended its EDI scheduling services, effective immediately, according to an email advisory seen by American Shipper.
   EDI is a data interchange used commonly in the ocean shipping industry to communicate between carriers and customers, so suspension of the service shouldn’t actually affect operations or any previously booked cargo.
   The most interesting aspect of this news, however, is that the service network of carrier vessel sharing agreement THE Alliance, of which Yang Ming is a member along with Hapag-Lloyd of Germany and Japan’s “Big 3” carriers – Mitsui O.S.K. Line (MOL), Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (“K” Line) – apparently has yet to be finalized.
   “As you know we’ll be a member of THE Alliance effective from this April, our service network will be changed at the same time,” Yang Ming said. “Current services with sailing schedule will be valid through March only, the new services are still under discussion. As a result, we’ll suspend EDI of schedule till new service structure is finalized.”
   In other words, with just a few months to go before the launch of a new global carrier alliance that will control roughly a third of overall capacity in the transpacific and Asia-Europe trade lanes, work still needs to be done to finalize port rotations and vessel deployment plans.
   The group announced its plans to cooperate in May 2016, primarily in response to the pending disbanding of the G6, CKYHE and Ocean3 alliances and the formation of the OCEAN Alliance, which will include China COSCO, CMA CGM, OOCL and Evergreen Line. The agreement was initially supposed to include now-insolvent South Korean carrier Hanjin Shipping, which is currently in the midst of liquidation after declaring bankruptcy in late August.
   When the carriers unveiled their planned service network in November, however, many of the port rotations were incomplete, listing calls like “North Europe hub” or Southeast Asia hub” in lieu of actual terminals. THE Alliance members at the time said the combined network would include 31 loops, utilizing 240 vessels and calling at more than 75 ports worldwide.