Grand Alliance to reinstate Asia/U.S. East Coast service

Grand Alliance to reinstate Asia/U.S. East Coast service    Grand Alliance carriers OOCL, P&O Nedlloyd, NYK Line and Hapag-Lloyd will reinstate a second Asia/Panama/U.S. East Coast all-water service in July and reallocate ports between the two resulting services to speed up transit times.
   Instead of the weekly “ECX” service in operation, and former fortnightly loop “ECX2,” suspended last winter, the carriers will operate a weekly “East Coast South” service covering mainly U.S. South Atlantic ports and a weekly “East Coast North” loop serving New York and Savannah.
   The “ECX” service employs nine ships of 3,390-TEU capacities. The new “East Coast South” loop will use nine 2,700-TEU vessels the “East Coast North” eight 3,600-TEU ships.
   P&O Nedlloyd said the “East Coast South” service will have a rotation of Tokyo, Busan, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shekou, Hong Kong, Miami, Savannah, Norfolk, Miami and back to Tokyo. The “East Coast North” will call at Busan, Shanghai, Shekou, Hong Kong, New York, Savannah and back to Busan.
   By sailing direct from Hong Kong to New York, the “East Coast North” all-water service will provide a fast eastbound transit time from Hong Kong to New York of 22 days, according to P&O Nedlloyd. Most all-water services today, including the Grand Alliance “ECX” and “AEX” services, have a Hong Kong-New York transit of 24-31 days, according to ComPair Data, the global liner-shipping database.
   In a separate development, OOCL said the Grand Alliance will split its U.S. East Coast/Mediterranean/Suez Canal/Asia/Pacific Northwest/Asia/Suez Canal/Mediterranean/U.S. East Coast “AEX/PNX” pendulum service into two shorter end-to-end services. With nine ships, the future “AEX” loop will cover the Asia/Suez Canal/Mediterranean/U.S. East Coast portion of the current service. The “PNX”, using six larger and faster ships of about 5,500-TEU capacities, will provide a service between Asia and the Pacific Northwest, OOCL said. The port rotations of the services have not been finalized.