GRAND ALLIANCE TO TAKE TRANSPACIFIC SLOTS ON COSCO SERVICE

GRAND ALLIANCE TO TAKE TRANSPACIFIC SLOTS ON COSCO SERVICE    The Grand Alliance carriers, Hapag-Lloyd, NYK Line, OOCL and P&O Nedlloyd, will introduce a transpacific container service in September under a slot charter agreement with COSCO Container Lines.
   The CEN service, operated with COSCO vessels, covers mainly Central and Northern China ports, and calls at the Californian ports of Long Beach and Oakland.
   “This service will be offered by the four Grand Alliance carriers in an effort to better serve their customers in the fast growing China market with new direct coverage of Xingang and Dalian, which the alliance has not offered before,” a spokesman for NYK said. Until now, the Chinese ports called direct by the Grand Alliance carriers have been Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Yantian and Shekou.
   The CEN weekly service of COSCO has a rotation of Dalian, Xingang, Qingdao, Busan, Long Beach, Oakland, Yokohama and back to Dalian.
   By taking space on an existing service, the Grand Alliance carriers will not increase capacity in the transpacific container trade.
   Subject to approval by the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission, the Grand Alliance carriers will start offering the service in September.
   The slot charter agreement between COSCO and the Grand Alliance in the transpacific follows a recent cooperative agreement in the transatlantic trade that allowed Hanjin, COSCO, “K” Line and Yang Ming to take space on the South Atlantic Gulf Express and GAS services of CP Ships and the Grand Alliance.