HANJIN, “K” LINE SWAP SPACE BETWEEN ASIA AND PACIFIC NORTHWEST

HANJIN, “K” LINE SWAP SPACE BETWEEN ASIA AND PACIFIC NORTHWEST

HANJIN, “K” LINE SWAP SPACE BETWEEN ASIA AND PACIFIC NORTHWEST

   Hanjin Shipping and “K”Line will start exchanging space in mid-December between their respective Asia/Pacific Northwest container services. Two existing partners of Hanjin and “K” Line — Senator Lines and Yang Ming Marine Transport — will now also have space on both transpacific services.
   The cooperative move is the first step of a wider plan to integrate the transpacific and Asia/Europe services of Hanjin Shipping, its subsidiary Senator Lines, “K” Line, COSCO Container Lines and Yang Ming.
   The initial slot exchange arrangement will allow “K”Line to charter space on Hanjin’s weekly PNX service and Hanjin to charter space on “K” Line’s weekly PNW service.
   At the same time, the Hanjin PNX service will add a call at Yantian and stop calling at Portland, Tokyo and Osaka, thereby allowing the Korean carrier to cut the number of ships employed from six to five. For Hanjin’s customers, though, the Portland and Tokyo calls will be replaced by the slot charter service using “K” Line ships.
   The PNX service operated by Hanjin has a revised rotation of Yantian, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Kwangyang, Busan, Seatle, Vancouver, Busan, Kwangyang, Keelung, Hong Kong and Yantian.
   The “K” Line PNW service will call at Hong Kong, Kobe, Nagoya, Tokyo, Tacoma, Vancouver, Portland, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe and Hong Kong.
   Hanjin and “K” Line said that the PNX service will employ five ships of 4,000 to 4,500 TEUs and the PNW loop will use five 2,800-TEU vessels.
   For the PNX service, Hanjin will redeliver a 2,700-TEU vessel at the end of December, and replace it by a larger ship of about 4,500-TEU capacity, thus increasing capacity overall.
   Contrary to the other main alliances, the COSCO/”K”
Line/Yangming/Hanjin/Senator grouping has not announced a reduction in capacity for the transpacific slack season.