CKYH alliance adds 4th Asia/U.S. East Coast all-water service

CKYH alliance adds 4th Asia/U.S. East Coast all-water service    The “CKYH” alliance of COSCO Container Lines, “K” Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin Shipping will add in December its fourth weekly Asia/U.S. East Coast all-water container service, confirming a trend towards East Coast transpacific services.
   No global alliance has provided more than three Asia/U.S. East Coast all-water container services per week.
   “K” Line said the additional service via the Panama Canal, “AWE4,” will employ eight vessels of about 3,500-TEU capacities. “All-water service to U.S. East Coast will be further enhanced with four strings of services by maximizing port coverage as well as offering adequate space to this growing market,” “K” Line said in a statement.
   The service will have a rotation (arrival/departure days) of: Ningbo (Tuesday/Wednesday), Shanghai (Wednesday/Thursday), Yantian (Saturday/Sunday), Hong Kong (Sunday/Monday), New York (Tuesday/Wednesday), Norfolk (Thursday/Friday), Savannah (Saturday/Sunday) and Ningbo.
   Asked if the Panama Canal was approaching capacity saturation, Yukikazu Myochin, manager, planning team at “K” Line, replied: “the capacity (of the canal) should be manageable … There are more problems on the U.S. West Coast.”
   Also in December, the CKYH alliance will revise its PNW/NOWCO-A service between Asia and the Pacific Northwest. The fleet of this service will be upgraded from 3,500-TEU to 4,000-TEU ships, with the former ships joining the new “AWE4” Asia/U.S. East Coast loop.
   The port rotation of the Pacific Northwest loop will remain largely unchanged, except that it will stop calling at the port of Portland. Its rotation will be Yantian (Wed/Thu), Hong Kong (Thu/Thu), Kobe (Mon/Mon), Nagoya (Tuesday/Tuesday), Tokyo (Wednesday/Wednesday), Tacoma (Thursday/Saturday), Vancouver, B.C. (Sunday/Monday), Tokyo (Wednesday/Thursday), Nagoya (Friday/Friday), Kobe (Saturday/Saturday) and Yantian.
   “K” Line said it will be able to route intermodal cargoes on its expanded Pacific Northwest service via the port of Tacoma, where the carrier’s subsidiary Husky operates a terminal.
   Husky will move to a larger terminal of 74 acres in Tacoma next summer adjacent to its current 33-acre marine facility in the port.