CKYHE expanding to U.S. trades

CKYHE plans to start operating in U.S. trades in the spring of 2015.    The CKYHE Alliance of COSCO, “K” LINE, Yang Ming, Hanjin Shipping and Evergreen Line said the five container carriers will expand their cooperation to the U.S. Trades.
   CKYHE — which operates between Asia and North Europe, and Asia and the Mediterranean — said it has submitted a formal letter to the Ministry of Transport in China and the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission, and informed the European Commission of its plans.
   “This expanded cooperation will provide the carriers with greater operational flexibility and will permit each of them to better serve its customers, offering wider port coverage, increased frequency of sailings, and stable transit times,” the companies said. The carriers said the alliance benefits the environment and that “each line is committed to environment-friendly shipping; a quality known to be highly valued by their customers.”
   The carriers say after the plan is approved by regulators, their target implementation date is the spring  of 2015.
   According to BlueWater Reporting, CKYHE currently has seven strings to North Europe/Med: MD2, CES/NE8, NE2, NE3, NE6, NE7, and the MD1/PM1 pendulum service, which serves the Med-Asia-WCNA and back.
   In April, the CKYHE filed a discussion agreement with the FMC noting that they had “been cooperating in various foreign-foreign trades with considerable success. The purpose of this agreement is to authorize the parties to discuss and determine whether and how the synergies and efficiencies that have characterized their foreign-foreign cooperation might be replicated in the U.S. foreign trades.”
   The five carriers have been cooperating as the CKYH and Evergreen on five U.S.-Asia services: AUE, AWE2, AWE4, PSX and the CEN/CALCO-Q.