CP Ships carriers add second Asia/North America service

CP Ships carriers add second Asia/North America service    Three carriers from the CP Ships stable — Lykes Lines, Canada Maritime and TMM Lines — will start a weekly transpacific service utilizing small ships in early March.
   The “Asia North America Sprint” will complement the “Asia Canada Sprint” launched last year, and demonstrates CP Ships’ intent to build upon its modest presence in the transpacific trade.
   The new service will use five ships with an average capacity of 1,500 TEUs, much less than the average of vessels in the trade. It will call at Hong Kong; Yantian; Vancouver, B.C.; Oakland, Calif.; Hong Kong and Yantian.
   Canada Maritime will not offer calls at Oakland to its shippers, while TMM Lines will not carry cargoes for Vancouver.
   The service will be introduced in early March, but will not commence its fixed-day weekly status until the vessel “Lykes Master” departs from Hong Kong April 6. Once the service becomes weekly, it will offer a transit of 12 days from Yantian to Vancouver and 15 days from Oakland to Hong Kong.
   The service will add about 78,000 TEUs in annual one-way capacity to the transpacific market.
   In a separate development, CP Ships confirmed it has stopped its Asia/Mexico/Central America/Caribbean multipurpose service.