Hanjin moves big ships away from congested Long Beach

Hanjin moves big ships away from congested Long Beach    Hanjin Shipping will reshuffle three of its transpacific services to reduce the disruption caused by port delays at the port of Long Beach.
   From next week, the Korean line’s U.S. West Coast/Asia/Europe/Asia/U.S. West Coast weekly “PDE” pendulum service will stop calling at Long Beach and Oakland and will instead call at the less congested ports of Vancouver and Portland. The service will have an eastbound transpacific rotation of Port Kelang, Yantian, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Busan, Seattle, Vancouver and Portland. The “PDE” service employs 12 Hanjin ships of about 5,500-TEU capacities.
   Conversely, Hanjin will redirect its “PNX” Asia/Pacific Northwest service to Pacific Southwest ports and rename the service “PSW.” This revised service, which uses smaller vessels of about 4,000-TEU capacities, will pick up the Long Beach and Oakland calls of the “PDE” service, starting from next week.
   The reshuffle means that the bigger 5,500-TEU ships on the pendulum service will no longer get caught in delays in California.
   In a related move, Hanjin also said that it will cut two ports of call in Europe and in the Indian Subcontinent from its U.S. West Coast/Asia/Europe/Asia/U.S. West Coast weekly “PDS” service. The canceled ports will be Felixstowe and Colombo eastbound.
   A spokesman for Hanjin said the reason for the changes is “to deal with congestion in Long Beach and Los Angeles.”
   Hanjin is only one of the carriers whose ship schedules have been disrupted by berthing delays of four to nine days in Los Angeles and Long Beach. Other carriers have diverted ships to ports in the Pacific Northwest or canceled calls to restore their schedules.
   COSCO Container Lines, “K” Line and Yang Ming Marine also take space on the Hanjin transpacific services as part of the CKYH alliance.
   According to industry sources, Hanjin’s switch of its 5,500-TEU vessels to the Pacific Northwest will last until congestion in Californian ports has eased.