U.S. Lines expands in the transpacific

U.S. Lines expands in the transpacific U.S. Lines is 'very much on the move,' Nick Hay, senior vice president of trades, said Tuesday.
   As reported Monday in AmericanShipper.com, U.S. Lines, acquired in 2007 by the CMA CGM Group, will expand its services in the transpacific, from three services last year to seven services by May. That’s on top of four services the carrier operates between the United States and Australia-New Zealand.
   It was thought that the U.S. Lines name was going to be phased out by CMA CGM, but ComPair Data researcher Stephen Wynn unearthed the services Friday.
   U.S. Lines was launched in 2003 by Ed Aldridge, a former chief operating officer of APL and senior executive at Sea-Land. The original U.S. Lines was founded in the 1920s and operated as a passenger line and later a container-shipping line. Malcom McLean, founder of Sea-Land, acquired the carrier and operated it from the late 1970s through the 1980s when it was liquidated in bankruptcy.
   The current nameholder initially operated with a single loop that connected Hong Kong and South China with Long Beach. It then added coverage of the Australia/New Zealand market in the summer of 2006 and where it says it has achieved a major market position and now operates four loops. These services also include calls at ports in Tahiti, Fiji and Hawaii. U.S. Lines operates four of its own ships in those trades.
   In 2008 USL broadened its transpacific offerings from one to three strings, and by May of this year will offer seven services in that trade. In these services, U.S. Lines does not operate its own vessels, but charters space on ships that CMA-CGM also utilizes with other carriers.
   The CMA CGM Group, the third-largest container carrier in the world, owns other brands including ANL, CNC, Delmas, Comanav and MacAndrews.
   The new offerings will include:
   ' The Columbus pendulum loop which offers two services, one that connects Vancouver and Seattle with Asia ports at one end and another, which connects Asia and New York and Norfolk on the other end.
   ' The Hudson service which will replace the company's current PEX 1 service and offer trans-Panama service between Korea and China, and call at Savannah, New York and Miami.
   ' Also starting up in May will be the trans-Panama PEX 3 service between China and U.S. ports of Houston, Mobile, Norfolk and Savannah.
   ' In February, U.S. Lines started participating in a service between five ports in Japan and the U.S. West Coast and Canada called the Fuji service.
   U.S. Lines will also continue to operate its Bohai Rim service, which connects Northern China with Long Beach and Oakland and the Pearl River Service which connects South China ports with Long Beach and Oakland.
   'The CMA CGM group is definitely growing and nurturing the U.S. Lines brand,' Hay said.
   'Our differentiation is the same as when the company was launched in 2003,' he added. 'We try to offer the personalized customer service that a relatively small carrier can, which is more difficult for the large mega carriers. It's a simple formula. We do the basics and try to do it right and the customers seem to embrace that.'