After agreeing to expand the successful G6 Alliance to the Trans-Pacific trade earlier this year, the six member lines (Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, APL, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Orient Overseas Container Line) announced the port rotations of their new service portfolio.
The new expanded cooperation will start in May with six coordinated services in the Asia-to-North America East Coast trade. It will deploy more than 50 vessels with capacities between 4,500 and 8,000 TEUs to connect about 30 ports in Asia, the United States and Canada’s East Coast, Central America, Caribbean, Indian Sub-continent, Mediterranean and the Middle East. Three of the enhanced services will transit the Suez Canal while the other three loops will sail via the Panama Canal. Compared to the existing Trans-Pacific service offerings of The New World Alliance and the Grand Alliance, the total capacity provision of the new service product by the G6 Alliance will be similar. “The cooperation enables the six member lines to offer an even more comprehensive and tightly meshed service network in this key trade with competitive transit times and increased sailing frequency. Each G6 Alliance member can now offer its clients a significantly increased range of port calls and numerous weekly departures,” the member carriers said in a statement.
The six new loops in the Asia-to-North America East Coast trade are the result of the merger and revision of several existing services separately offered by the two alliances today plus one entirely new service.
The G6 Alliance started in March 2012 to provide competitive service networks in the Asia-to-Europe trade and will now be expanded to cover the Asia-to-North America East Coast trade.
The rotations will undoubtedly be subject to future revisions as carriers will fine-tune ports of call depending on whether or not the additional calls will generate additional volumes and profitability for them.