New World Alliance adds capacity, speed to Asia/U.S. East Coast link

New World Alliance adds capacity, speed to Asia/U.S. East Coast link    New World Alliance carriers APL, Hyundai Merchant Marine and MOL are adding more than 30 percent in capacity to one of their Asia/U.S. East Coast services, the “New York Express” link, launched earlier this year.
   A spokesman for Hyundai said that the alliance carriers are also introducing vessels of 24-25 knots to replace slower 20-knot ships, allowing a shortening of transit times and the reduction from nine to eight in the number of vessels used in the weekly East Coast service.
   For example, the transit time from Kaohsiung to New York will be 21 days and the time from Hong Kong to New York will be 22 days.
   Four of the eight 4,000-TEU ships operating in the service come from the Asia/U.S. West Coast “PSV” service, which has been discontinued for the duration of the slack season. The larger ships replace nine vessels of 3,000-TEU capacity. The new deployment of vessels will commence with the sailing of the “MOL Expeditor” from Shanghai on Saturday (Nov. 15).
   The rotation of the “NYX” service is:    Shanghai, Yantian, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Manzanillo (Panama), New York, Norfolk, Savannah, Manzanillo (Panama), Yokohama, Busan, and back to Shanghai.
   The revised transit times of the “NYX” service are posted on the global liner shipping database ComPairData at www.compairdata.com .
   The New World Alliance currently operates nine weekly services in the transpacific: seven calling at the West Coast of North America and two (the “Atlantic Pacific Express” and the “NYX”) at the U.S. East Coast.