“K” Line, MOL to merge Japan/WCNA services

“K” Line, MOL to merge Japan/WCNA services

“K” Line, MOL to merge Japan/WCNA services

   Japanese liner carriers MOL and 'K' Line said Friday they would cooperate on two services linking Japan to the West Coast of North America, affecting a couple of existing loops operated by the two lines.
   Beginning April 7, MOL (a member of the New World Alliance) and 'K' Line (a member of the CKYH Alliance) will partner on an express loop between four Japanese ports and Los Angeles and Oakland, a service MOL will call JAS and 'K' Line will call PSW-3.
   The service will operate with five vessels of 3,700 to 3,850 TEUs, three provided by MOL and two by 'K' Line. It will have a rotation of Kobe, Nagoya, Shimizu, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Oakland, Tokyo and Kobe.
   According to American Shipper research affiliate ComPair Data, the JAS/PSW-3 appears to be a compromise between two of the lines' existing services. It resembles MOL's five-ship JAS service on which Evergreen and New World Alliance partner APL provide one ship each (CMA CGM is also a slot buyer), with a revised port rotation that excludes Pacific Northwest calls to Tacoma and Vancouver and a stop in Osaka. MOL said the Pacific Northwest calls would be shifted to the other service on which it is cooperating with 'K' Line. The line added that the rearranged service will provide faster transit times from Los Angeles and Oakland to Japan by eliminating the Pacific Northwest calls.
   For 'K' Line, the new PSW-3 also revises the current service it offers under that moniker. The current PSW-3 operates as a CKYH service, with five of its own ships, with a rotation of Shanghai, Kobe, Yokkaichi, Nagoya, Tokyo, Long Beach, Oakland, Tokyo, Nagoya, and Shanghai. Under the revised PSW-3, calls to Yokkaichi and Shanghai are eliminated, with Shanghai covered by the other cooperative service with MOL. For 'K' Line, the new joint service will employ bigger vessels than are used on its PSW-3, though the capacity on the trade will be reduced since the two five-ship services are being merged into one.
   The other joint service is dubbed K-PNW by 'K' Line and PN1 by MOL, and seems to be forged out of an existing 'K' Line-operated CKYH service of the same name. The new K-PNW will have a rotation of Xiamen, Hong Kong, Yantian, Shanghai, Nagoya, Tokyo, Tacoma, Vancouver, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Kaohsiung and Xiamen. For MOL, the service is new as it hadn't offered a comparable rotation.
   The rotation varies just slightly from the current K-PNW order, with Tokyo and Nagoya called before Kobe on the backhaul from Vancouver as opposed to after Nagoya.
   The service will be operated with six 5,200-TEU vessels, five from 'K' Line and one from MOL, a roughly 30 percent upgrade in capacity from 'K' Line's current service, which uses six 4,000-TEU ships on average.