TAIWAN' s Evergreen Line is preparing to add an additional Far East-North Europe service through container slots purchased on the CKYH Asia-North Europe Loop 6 (NE 6) from the end of March, signalling the start of a broad Evergreen-CKYH alliance on the Asia-Europe.

The arrangement, announced in December, is expected to be extended to all of the Evergreen and CKYH strings, comprising Cosco, "K" Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin Shipping, on the route involving eight weekly Asia-North Europe loops and four weekly Asia-Mediterranean loops, to be implemented over April and May, reports Alphaliner.

It said a total of seven shipping lines will participate in the Asia-Europe loops, as part of a wider pact involving the four CKYH carriers with Evergreen, CSCL and UASC through various individual slot exchange arrangements with the latter three carriers.

The first Evergreen sailing on the NE 6 is scheduled to depart from Xingang on March 23 with the Hanjin Greece coinciding with the launch of a revised port rotation calling at Hamburg, Rotterdam, Le Havre, Algeciras (HT), Singapore, Hong Kong, Xingang, Kwangyang, Busan, Shanghai, Shenzhen-Yantian, Singapore, Algeciras (HT) and back to Hamburg.

The NE 6 will deploy 11 ships in the 10,000 to 13,000-TEU range under the revised rotation, compared with 10 ships of 8,200 to 10,000 TEU now deployed.



The average weekly capacity will increase 16 per cent from 9,350 TEU to 10,850 TEU by April. This service is also used by slot takers UASC (branding it AEC 9) and CSCL (branding it AEX 5). NYK, which currently takes slots on the NE 6, is expected to terminate the slot arrangement from April as it refocuses on its own participation on the rival G6 Alliance.



A wider revamp of the CKYH Asia-Europe services is expected to be announced within the next few weeks, with capacity upgrades expected, the report added.