APL ends Pacific Rim Express Service

APL ends Pacific Rim Express Service APL said it is ending the Pacific Rim Express Service (PRE) between Far East ports and Los Angeles.
   APL’s New World Alliance partners Hyundai Merchant Marine and MOL had also offered service on the string.
   “We continue to review the market outlook and make deployment decisions based on the round-trip economics of the trade,” said Mike Zampa, a spokesman for the company.
   The PRE string was formed when APL reduced capacity last November. The PRE was formed when the company combined the SAX and PS2 services into a single string.
   Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, said his group is “alarmed by continuing reductions in vessel service” to the United States, highlighting the APL decision.
   He said shortages of vessel space and containers are “crippling U.S. agriculture’s ability to access foreign markets eagerly seeking to purchase food and fiber from U.S. farmers and producers.”
   Zampa said, “We understand the challenges facing shippers in light of the unprecedented export boom. We’ve responded by adding customer service personnel dedicated exclusively to export bookings, deploying new technology to help us match equipment supply and demand in discreet geographical areas and working with export shippers on longer planning horizons.”
   While reducing transpacific capacity service to the United States, APL is increasing capacity between Asia and Mexico by entering into a second joint service with Hapag-Lloyd. The two companies will add a second string connecting the Far East and Mexico in mid-June.
   Hapag-Lloyd said this will “give customers a further improvement in transport capacities” with three additional ports called in Asia –Qingdao, Xiamen and Hong Kong — as well as weekly, rather than fortnightly departures from Ensenada in northern Mexico.
   The new AME I service will have a rotation of Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Yokohama, Ensenada, Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas and Ensenada before returning to Yokohama. The first departure is scheduled from Ningbo on June 19.
   The new AME II service will call at Xiamen, Hong Kong, Chiwan, Kaohsiung, Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo before returning to Yokohama. The first departure is planned from Hong Kong on June 14.
   Hapag-Lloyd said transit times for customers will shorten significantly in some cases. The transit time between Kaohsiung and Lazaro Cardenas, for example, will be only 15 days instead of 23 days.
   Hapag-Lloyd will deploy six 4200-TEU ships and APL six 5100-TEU vessels. Previously, Hapag-Lloyd had provided four ships and APL two ships.