NEW WORLD ALLIANCE REDUCES TRANSPACIFIC CAPACITY

NEW WORLD ALLIANCE REDUCES TRANSPACIFIC CAPACITY    New World Alliance carriers APL, Hyundai Merchant Marine and MOL, the largest alliance grouping in the transpacific trade, are stopping one of their nine transpacific services and reshuffling other services.
   The shipping lines are ending their weekly Pacific Northwest Express service and taking five ships of about 2,600-TEU capacity out of the over-tonnaged Asia/North America trade as volumes drop following the end of the yearly pre-holiday peak season.
   The withdrawal of the service represents a reduction of 7 percent in the New World Alliance’s transpacific capacity and a 1 percent fall in the capacity provided by all the shipping lines in the Asia/North America trade, according to World Liner Supply, a reporting service of the global liner shipping database ComPairData.
   The New World Alliance will also revise two services — the Pacific Southwest 1 and Pacific Southwest 3 — to pick up port calls of the former Pacific Northwest Express service.
   The Pacific Northwest Express service has called at Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Kobe, Nagoya, Tokyo, Seattle, Vancouver abd Tokyo.
   The redesigned PS1 service will feature added eastbound calls at Nagoya and Tokyo and a new call at Vancouver to serve both eastbound and westbound markets. The change becomes effective on Nov. 8 from Nagoya.
   The revised PS3 service will start calling at Seattle and Vancouver for westbound cargo, effective from Nov. 22 in Seattle.
   These additional port calls will be accommodated by dropping the current Port Kelang call on the PS1 service, the Oakland call on the PS3 service, and by speeding up the vessels and tightening arrival/departure schedules, the carriers said.
   In addition, the New World Alliance’s all-water East Coast Service will now include the addition of a westbound call at Oakland, effective Nov. 21, after sailing from Panama on its return to Asia.
   MOL expects that a ninth transpacific service may be resumed next spring, when shipping lines hope that strong cargo volumes will return.
   Paul Wilke, spokesman for APL, said that the New World Alliance had planned the transpacific service changes before Sept. 11. “There’s no question that the transpacific continues to be soft with volume,” he said.
   Evergreen, which takes slots on the Pacific Northwest Express service of the New World Alliance, will be affected by the change.
   China Shipping and CMA CGM recently reduced their transpacific services’ capacity. The Grand Alliance is also planning to lower the capacity of its services in the transpacific, according to industry sources.
   However, other carriers are continuing to introduce larger containerships in the transpacific.