CKYH Alliance slashes Asia/Europe capacity 30%
| Related News • CKYH carriers cut capacity on three major trades |
CKYH Alliance carriers COSCO, 'K' Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin said Friday they are cutting further capacity on Far East/Europe services in response to weak demand during the winter.
The carriers said they will combine the current AES and AEN services from the end of November into a combined service called CNEU, with direct port calls at Dalian, Xingang, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Yantian, Nansha, Singapore, Rotterdam, Felixstowe, Hamburg, Antwerp, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Additionally, a number of sailings in both the AES2 and AES3 services will be suspended from mid-December 2008, in order to cope with the slack season, though port coverage on the services will remain the same.
The result of the service cuts will see CKYH Far East/Europe capacity cut by 30 percent, or about 16,000 TEUs weekly. The combined service will employ 10 ships on the new CNEU service, meaning a cut of six vessels from the previous two services.
AES uses eight vessels of 8,204 to 9,469 TEUs with a port rotation of Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Nansha, Singapore, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. AEN uses eight vessels of 9,469 to 10,000 TEUs with a port rotation of Lianyungang, Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao, Yantian, Hong Kong, Felixstowe, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Nansha and Lianyungang.
The capacity cuts come on top of cuts announced by the alliance on Nov. 13, which included reductions in Far East/Europe, transatlantic and transpacific services. In mid-October, the four lines also slashed capacity in the transpacific and Mediterranean/Far East trades.
