NEW WORLD ALLIANCE REDUCES FREQUENCY, CAPACITY ON ASIA/EUROPE SERVICE

NEW WORLD ALLIANCE REDUCES FREQUENCY, CAPACITY ON ASIA/EUROPE SERVICE    From the start of October, APL is pulling three chartered vessels from its North China Express service as part of an exercise by the New World Alliance to reduce capacity in the over-tonnaged Asia/Europe trade.
   Fellow New World Alliance carrier Hyundai Merchant Marine is also removing one vessel from the service.
   Consequently, the service frequency will be reduced from a weekly frequency to fortnightly sailings.
   The move by the New World Alliance to reduce capacity comes at a time when Far Eastern Freight Conference, of which APL is a member, prepares to discuss ways to deal with over-capacity in the Asia/Europe trade at a meeting in Shanghai next week.
   “This is taking place against the backdrop of APL’s publicly stated policy of returning chartered vessels to their owners as new tonnage comes on line, and is also part of the work APL and its New World Alliance partners are undertaking to deal with wider capacity demand issues,” a spokesman for APL said.
   The removal of four ships from the North China Express service, commenced in June, will cut annual one-way capacity in the Asia/Europe trade by about 220,000 TEUs.
   The North China Express service will now utilize four Hyundai 4,411-TEU vessels and call Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Chiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Aden, Hamburg, Antwerp, Southampton, Singapore, Chiwan, Hong Kong, Qingdao, Ningbo and Shanghai.
   The decision of the New World Alliance to restructure one of its services to adopt a fortnightly frequency, when virtually all the other Asia/Europe links are weekly, will be seen as a radical measure to address the current market downturn.