Tokyo: Rival liner coalitions The New World Alliance (TNWA) and the Grand Alliance (GA) are to combine forces to operate a revised Asia-West Mediterranean service beginning 23 December 2008. This latest co-operation comes on the heels of a similar agreement in November between the two groups for their Asia-US East Coast service, due to significantly lower demand for cargoes.
TNWA member carriers Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), APL, and Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) will provide two vessels of 6,000teu for the revised MED service, while GA member lines - Hapag-Lloyd, MISC Berhad, Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), and Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) will provide six 6,000teu vessels.
The "MED" service will make new calls at Jeddah, Pusan, Shekou and Valencia. The revised port rotation is Pusan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Chiwan, Shekou, Hong Kong, Singapore, Port Kelang, Jeddah, Damietta, Genoa, Fos, Barcelona, Valencia, Damietta, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Pusan.
TNWA has also announced that its "JEX" service has changed its rotation between Yantian and Hong Kong in Eastbound voyage from December 2008, and will start calling at Jeddah from 15 January 2009.The revised port rotation is Kobe, Nagoya, Shimizu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Yantian, Singapore, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Le Havre, Jeddah, Singapore, Yantian, Hong Kong, and Kobe. This new rotation will provide customers a direct access from Middle-East to Japan and the fastest transit from Hong Kong to Kobe.
Additionally, a new deployment schedule was implemented for China - Europe service since early November, merging "CEX" service into "SCX" service. The revised service calls at: Ningbo, Shanghai, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Chiwan, Singapore, Colombo, Southampton, Zeebrugge, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Salalah, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Ningbo.
The inclusion of the port of Colombo has added to TWNA's Asia coverage and the service will call at Southampton as its first European stop instead of Thamesport. Ports previously linked by CEX are now covered by other TNWA services, for example, Yantian by JEX, Thamesport by AEX or Antwerp by LP2. [12/12/08]
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Seatrade, a trading name of Informa Markets (UK) Limited. Add Seatrade Maritime News to your Google News feed.
