The 23,756 teu MSC Mia, one of a series of the largest boxships ever built, has been deployed on ad hoc basis on the 2M alliance’s North Europe - Far East – US West Coast AE1/TP6 service according to analyst Alphaliner.
The 23,000 teu ships were expected to be exclusively deployed the Asia – Europe trade, with the vessels generally considered too large to be handled by US ports and 2M normally deploys 13,000 teu vessels on the trade.
Alphaliner said in its weekly newsletter that it believes the deployment was made in a move to address equipment shortages in the US caused by the large number of blanked sailings following Chinese New Year and the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) which saw much of Chinese manufacturing closed in February.
“Since front-haul cargo volumes have collapsed and only relatively few containers from China arrive in Europe and America with cargo, there is currently not enough container equipment to accommodate European and American export cargo,” the newsletter said.
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