TOL AND NZUE MERGE ASIA/NEW ZEALAND SERVICES

   Tasman Orient Line and New Zealand Unit Express will merge and revise
their Southeast Asia/East Asia/New Zealand services, effective mid-January.
   NZUE is a service managed by P&O Nedlloyd subsidiary P&O Swire.
   Following the change, the carriers will offer a fixed-day weekly service
between Hong Kong and New Zealand. They will also provide direct calls for
each voyage at Keelung, Auckland, Wellington and Tauranga.
   The ports of Lyttleton and Napier will be served by the NZUE vessels, but
not by the Tasman Orient Line ships. Conversely, Tasman Orient Line’s vessels will be the only ones in the joint service to serve Manila, Kaohsiung and Taichung.
   Tasman Orient Line said that it intends to upgrade its vessels to improve service speed and deliver "a true weekly container service."
   In a separate development, Tasman Orient Line has added a second port
call at Yokohama on its North Asia Service/New Zealand service to improve
the northbound transit time.
   The revised rotation is Busan, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Auckland, Wellington, Timaru, Tauranga, Yokohama, Busan, Osaka and Nagoya.
   Details of the revisions for both services are available at
https://www.americanshipper.com.