Maersk cuts back on AE2

   The shipping company Maersk Line will reduce capacity on its 11-ship Asia-Europe AE2 loop in March by switching to smaller vessels.
   All five of the 13,000-TEU ships currently on its AE2 loop will be replaced by ones of 8,100 to 8,500 TEUs. Once complete, average capacity on the service will drop from the current 10,790 TEUs to 8,612 TEUs, a decrease of roughly 20 percent.
   In addition, the carrier has dropped a westbound AE2 call at Valencia, Spain, and added a new inbound call at Le Havre in its place.
   The revised AE2 rotation is Le Havre, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Antwerp, Felixstowe, Singapore, Busan, Hakata, Dalian, Xingang, Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas and Le Havre.
   The AE2 is one of seven Asia-Europe loops offered by Maersk. The others are its AE1, AE7, AE9, AE10, the TP6/AE6 pendulum, and the joint FAL5/AE8 service with CMA CGM.
   The AE2 leaves Tanjung Pelepas outbound on Fridays with a very fast 17-day transit to Le Havre. Eastbound on the Felixstowe-Singapore transit is 21 days.
   All seven of Maersk’s Asia-Europe loops call at Tanjung Pelepas westbound, but only four call in Southeast Asia on the eastbound – and only one of these, TP6/AE6, calls Tanjung Pelepas. The other three, AE1, AE2, and FAL5/AE8, call only Singapore. This highlights a growing tendency for Maersk to use Tanjung Pelepas as its main Asian hub westbound and Singapore eastbound. — ComPair Data, Ben Meyer