G6 won’t operate 7th Asia-N. Europe loop

   The carrier members of the G6 Alliance on the Asia-Northern Europe trade said Wednesday they will not operate a seventh service on the trade as previously planned.
   “This loop was originally developed as one of the seven loops between Asia and North Europe jointly provided by the six members,” the lines said. “It was not initiated in March because of the unsuitable market conditions at that time and the G6 Alliance has not seen any improvements in the current market environment to justify the implementation of an additional service in the Asia-Europe trade.”
   G6 members are APL, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, MOL, NYK Line, and OOCL. Aside from the six existing Asia-Northern Europe loops the six lines jointly operate, they also partner on an Asia-Mediterranean and Asia-Black Sea service.
   The alliance started one month earlier than planned, in early March. However, concerns over too much capacity in the Asia-Europe trade remain, even as industry leaders Maersk Line and CMA CGM stripped some of their capacity out.
   SeaIntel, the Danish-based liner analyst, noted earlier this week that the reductions made by Maersk and CMA CGM (which amounted to 16,700 TEUs per week) have already been mostly negated.
   “We find that capacity injections now exceed the capacity removed from the trade by Maersk Line and CMA CGM in February 2012,” SeaIntel said. “The injections primarily come from the announcements of two new services – Evergreen, CSCL and Zim’s announcement last week was the latest of those. Additionally, capacity is increased through the phase-in of larger vessels, combined with Maersk Line’s re-building of their S-class vessels increasing the capacity of those by 1,400 TEUs. The total announced additions of capacity now amounts to almost 18,000 TEUs.”
   Additionally, maritime analyst Alphaliner noted this week that the level of the global idled vessel fleet has come crashing down in recent weeks, from 913,000 TEUs of capacity in mid-March to 620,000 TEUs at the end of April.
   “New service launches in the next three months are expected to bring the idle fleet below 350,000 TEU by July,” Alphaliner said.
   The current idled capacity rate dropped below 4 percent of the total global fleet, compared to 5.8 percent just two months ago. — Eric Johnson