As shipping lines gear up for a new alliance landscape in the coming year, there is a flurry of activity to reorganize service networks, with significant changes anticipated for the Asia-North Europe trade route.
Last week, it was revealed that Gemini alliance partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have chosen London Gateway as their UK port of call for the Asia-North Europe route, over Felixstowe. This decision leaves MSC as the largest carrier at the UK's busiest port. However, the Ocean Alliance still maintains two Asia-North Europe calls at Felixstowe with its NEU1 and NEU6 services.
A local freight forwarder commented, "Felixstowe will undoubtedly face challenges, and this development underscores the importance of MSC.
"The Ocean Alliance will continue to have regular calls on various services, but this is a substantial setback for the UK's most significant port."
In other news, the German shipping company has declared a restructuring of its independent China-Germany Express service.
Starting from January, the service will include two new port calls in China, at Shanghai and Ningbo, while the call at Antwerp will be discontinued, and new calls at Rotterdam and Southampton will be introduced.
The complete port rotation will be: Yangshan-Ningbo - Yantian-Singapore-Tema-Southampton-Rotterdam-Wilhelmshaven.
According to the eeSea liner database, the CGX service operates with 12 vessels, each with an average capacity of 4,200 TEU. Hapag-Lloyd stated that the new rotation will commence with the departure of the 6,500 TEU vessel Copiapo from Shanghai on January 3rd.
As part of this reconfiguration, Hapag-Lloyd will terminate its slot charter agreement with the Ocean Alliance on the CMA CGM-led NEU5 Asia-North Europe service by year-end.
This slot-charter agreement was signed at the start of 2023 to partially offset the closure of the CGX service, which Hapag-Lloyd had initiated as an additional loader between the Chinese port of Da Chan Bay and Hamburg to alleviate port congestion during the pandemic.
In response to the unexpected early peak season demand, Hapag-Lloyd resumed the CGX in June of this year.
According to eeSea, Hapag-Lloyd had been allocated 10% of the NEU5 capacity under its FE9 service—the final voyage of the FE9 will be the departure of the 23,100 TEU CMA CGM Rivoli from Qingdao on December 30th.
