2M alters five Asia-North Europe loops

The ocean carrier alliance, consisting of Maersk Line and MSC, will adjust its Asia-North Europe network, which includes five services.    The 2M Alliance, comprised of the world’s two largest container carriers, Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Company, is altering its services between Asia and North Europe, the carriers said.
   “The adjusted network will offer a more reliable product and enhance transit times in key corridors, while delivering operational cost savings,” Maersk said. The network will be fully phased in during the third quarter, the Danish carrier added.
   In addition, Maersk said the changes “will eliminate overlapping port pairs in order to reduce the number of direct port calls in the network. This enables increased reliability through slower network speeds, while the reduction in port calls make it possible for Maersk Line to maintain competitive transit times.”
    “Most significantly, Maersk Line strengthens its products into Germany and the Netherlands,” Maersk said. The services “will feature market leading transit times from main Asian markets to Bremerhaven and Rotterdam, where westbound transit times are improved by as much as four days,” Maersk said. “Eastbound transit time between Rotterdam and Shanghai is reduced by five days, providing a unique product in the market.”
    Maersk said a key enabler for the improvements is its more effective deployment of large container vessels across its five Asia – North Europe services in the network.
    “We are utilizing our scale to deliver a better product,” Maersk Chief Commercial Officer Vincent Clerc said. “With the largest network and the deployment of an increasingly uniform fleet of ultra large container vessels, we maintain our extensive direct coverage while focusing each service towards best in class transit times to specific markets on the trade.”
   “Our improved network is the result of a stable, maturing alliance seeking to address current customer-felt pain points,” Clerc added. “It strengthens our commercial offering and offers shippers a stable choice in times where other alliance networks await reshuffling.”
    The five services and their respective Maersk/MSC designations are: the AE1/Shogun, the AE2/Swan, the AE5/Albatross, the AE6/Lion and the AE10/Silk. In addition to serving trade between Asia and North Europe, the AE6/Lion also operates between Asia and the West Coast of North America. The loop’s transpacific leg is designated as the TP6 by Maersk and the Pearl by MSC.
   In sum, these five services combined have a weekly deployed capacity of 80,157 TEUs (based on average vessel capacity), according to ocean carrier schedule and capacity database BlueWater Reporting’s capacity report.