CP SHIPS ADDS CANADA MARITIME TO ASIA/CANADA LINK

CP SHIPS ADDS CANADA MARITIME TO ASIA/CANADA LINK    CP Ships is adding Canada Maritime as a third brand name of the group active in the transpacific trade, besides Lykes Lines and TMM Lines.
   Canada Maritime, until now exclusively a transatlantic operator, will take slots on the existing “Asia Canada Sprint” weekly container service of Lykes and TMM, effective mid-May. The move represents the entry of Canada Maritime in the transpacific trade.
   The service, launched earlier this year with five ships of about 1,900 TEUs, calls at Vancouver, British Columbia; Anchorage, Alaska; Tokyo; Shanghai; Qingdao; Busan; Vancouver and Anchorage.
   Through an internal arrangement within CP Ships, Canada Maritime will take slots at Vancouver on Lykes Lines’ weekly service.
   Canada Maritime will use CP Railway to provide rail services between Vancouver, the interior of Canada and the U.S. Midwest. CP Ships said that Canada Maritime would run a Vancouver intermodal gateway in the transpacific similar to the Montreal gateway used for its Atlantic operations.
   “This is quite an expansion for us,” said Terry Burrows, senior vice president of CP Ships.
   The CP Ships group has added activities in the transpacific trade, but it recently stopped its money-losing Asia/Europe slot charter operations. CP Ships has a relatively small market share in the transpacific trade.