CKYH Alliance to expand Asia/East Med presence
Three members of Asia's CKYH Alliance — COSCO Container Lines, “K” Line and Yang Ming — will in mid-March look to prosper in the booming trade between the Far East and the Mediterranean by introducing a weekly East Mediterranean Express service.
The EMX will use seven 3,000-TEU box ships, with Chinese line COSCO providing four vessels, Taiwan's Yang Ming two ships and one vessel from Japanese carrier 'K' Line. The service will call Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Shekou, Singapore, Ashdod, Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Singapore, Hong Kong, and back to Shanghai.
The carriers said they would expand the market coverage of the service through the Israeli and Greek hub ports.
At the same time, the carriers will also phase in larger ships on their weekly Aegean Sea Direct Express, changing from six vessels of 1,400 TEUs to six of 2,000 TEUs. Yang Ming contributes four of the vessels on the ADX with the other two ships coming from COSCO.
The ADX calls Hong Kong, Singapore, Istanbul, Haydarpasa, Gemlik, Izmir, Singapore and Hong Kong again.
The other member of the alliance, Korea's Hanjin Shipping, isn’t involved on the ADX and won't be taking slots on the new EMX.
'”All member lines of CKYH Alliance believed that the launching of new EMX and upgrading ADX will not only enlarge the service coverage and service quality, but also enhance the cooperation scope globally,' the three participating carriers said in a joint statement.