Alliances partner on transpacific

Alliances partner on transpacific    Grand Alliance carriers will in early December begin supplying vessels on a New World Alliance's Asia/U.S. East Coast all-water service through the Panama Canal.
   It's the second winter running the two alliances have collaborated on after partnering consistently in recent years on the Asia/Europe lane.
   Grand Alliance members Hapag-Lloyd, NYK Line and OOCL will provide three containerships on the New World Alliance's NYX service. New World Alliance members are APL, Hyundai Merchant Marine and MOL.
   The service is operated with nine vessels — four from APL, three from Hyundai and two from MOL — but each of the three carriers will withdraw one vessel, to be replaced by three 3,800-TEU Grand Alliance vessels. The Grand Alliance vessels will be smaller than the ones they are replacing which, according to ComPair Data, average 4,805 TEUs.
   'The changes made will reduce trade capacity by approximately 4,000 TEUs, which is in line with continued challenging market conditions,' the New World Alliance said in a statement.
   The Grand Alliance said the ships to be used will come from its pool, based on their “best ship available” policy. In joining the NYX service, the Grand Alliance will also temporarily suspend its own similar service, the SCE all-water loop, for 18 weeks.
   Last year, the two alliances made a similar arrangement in reverse, with New World carriers suspending their NYX and temporarily joining the Grand Alliance’s SCE service.
   Aside from cooperating on the NYX loop, the New World Alliance said it will also add a call to Shekou in the Port of Shenzhen to the service, giving it three calls in the Pearl River Delta.
   The revised NYX rotation is Shanghai, Ningbo, Shekou, Yantian, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Panama Canal, Manzanillo, New York, Norfolk, Savannah, Jacksonville, Miami, Manzanillo, Panama Canal, Balboa, Yokohama and Pusan.
   The move represents a continuation of cooperation between the two mostly Asia-based alliances, with the Grand Alliance and New World alliances combining on numerous Asia/Europe services through a slot exchange program.
   The New World offers six transpacific services to North America outside of the NYX (one with Evergreen as a slot buyer), while the Grand Alliance operates seven of its own (two with Zim as a vessel operating partner and one as a slot buyer), though one will temporarily disappear with the suspension of the SCE.
   Another Grand Alliance service with similar port calls to the NYX — the PAX transpacific/transatlantic pendulum between Asia, the U.S. West Coast, U.S. East Coast and Europe — will continue unaffected. The PAX, like the NYX, has stops in Manzanillo, New York, Norfolk and Savannah; and Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, and Yantian in Asia. The suspended SCE all-water service, meanwhile, calls in Shekou, Kaohsiung and Hong Kong before connecting to New York, Norfolk, Savannah and Manzanillo, all ports that are called by the NYX.
   In announcing its winter program for U.S. East Coast all-water services, the Grand Alliance also said it is adding a stop in Kingston to its other all-water transpacific service to the U.S. East Coast, the NCE loop, on which Zim is a vessel provider. ' Eric Johnson