MAERSK, SEA-LAND ADD TRANSPACIFIC CAPACITY, REVAMP SERVICES

   Maersk Line and Sea-Land Service are revamping four of their container
services connecting with Asia, North America and Europe to add capacity to
the booming transpacific trade.
   The carriers will "disconnect" the East Coast of North America/Mediterranean Suez Express leg of their TP6/Suez Express service from the rest of the itinerary and send the vessels of this service to northern Europe instead.
   The service will now have a rotation of northern Europe/Salalah/Asian
ports/Long Beach/Tacoma/Asian ports/northern Europe.
   The new TP6/AE5 service will use 13 ships of about 6,400-TEUs capacity. The current TP6/Suez Express service employs 15 vessels with capacities ranging from 4,000 to 6,400-TEUs.
   Maersk and Sea-Land will also revamp their U.S. West Coast/Asia/Mideast TP5 loop and extend through the Suez Canal to pick up the previous Atlantic leg of the Suez Express service. The service will operate under the name Suez Express/TP5.
   In a related development, the TP5 service will no longer call at Mideast
ports, except at Salalah.
   The larger "K-class" 6,400-TEU ships are being switched from the AE1
Asia/Europe joint service of Maersk and Sea-Land to the TP6/AE5 "pendulum." The AE1 Asia/northern Europe service will now use smaller vessels of about 4,000-TEUs capacity.
   A spokesman for Maersk said the changes to the TP6, Suez Express, TP5, AE2 and AE5 services are designed to reduce costs and provide more transpacific capacity.
   Maersk and Sea-Land are the latest containership operators to inject
more vessel capacity into the Pacific trade.