OCEAN Alliance members CMA CGM, Cosco, Evergreen and OOCL (now part of the Cosco group) are to start their new Day 4 east-west trade network enhancements, scheduled to begin from April.
The alliance's lead line CMA CGM said that compared with the current Day 3 product, the new service enhancements will offer customers 'more port calls, more direct links and better transit times'.
The alliance announced the revised network would deploy 325 containerships across 38 services for an estimated total carrying capacity of 3.8 million TEU, according to The Loadstar, UK.
This is almost the same offering as the current product, although there is a reduction of five vessels, presumably a reflection of the twelve 20,000-plus TEU ULCVs that were phased into the network to replace smaller tonnage last year.
The Ocean Alliance received some 300,000 TEU of new vessels of over 13,000 TEU last year, just shy of the 330,000 TEU of the 2M, but three times the number delivered to the smaller THE Alliance.
The Ocean Alliance will maintain its seventh weekly Asia-North Europe string which it introduced last April. The addition of this loop, together with capacity upgrades by other alliances, exerted severe pressure on freight rates on the tradelane, obliging the alliances, to blank a number of headhaul sailings during and after the peak season.
There is no change to the Ocean Alliance's offering on the transpacific of 19 services across Asia to US routes - 12 on the US west coast and seven covering the east and Gulf coasts.
For the transatlantic, Ocean will still offer just two services, having reduced the number from four strings in last year's network changes.
Looking at the orderbook, CMA CGM has around 470,000 TEU of ULCVs and Evergreen 550,000 TEU stemmed for delivery this year and next, while Cosco/OOCL currently have no orders confirmed, although rumours persist of a big order from the Chinese state-owner.
Meanwhile, The Loadstar understands that the 2M alliance will shortly be announcing network changes from April 1, reflecting the partners' circa-300,000 TEU orderbook, of which MSC will take delivery of the lion's share of some 250,000 TEU of scrubber-fitted ULCVs.
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The alliance's lead line CMA CGM said that compared with the current Day 3 product, the new service enhancements will offer customers 'more port calls, more direct links and better transit times'.
The alliance announced the revised network would deploy 325 containerships across 38 services for an estimated total carrying capacity of 3.8 million TEU, according to The Loadstar, UK.
This is almost the same offering as the current product, although there is a reduction of five vessels, presumably a reflection of the twelve 20,000-plus TEU ULCVs that were phased into the network to replace smaller tonnage last year.
The Ocean Alliance received some 300,000 TEU of new vessels of over 13,000 TEU last year, just shy of the 330,000 TEU of the 2M, but three times the number delivered to the smaller THE Alliance.
The Ocean Alliance will maintain its seventh weekly Asia-North Europe string which it introduced last April. The addition of this loop, together with capacity upgrades by other alliances, exerted severe pressure on freight rates on the tradelane, obliging the alliances, to blank a number of headhaul sailings during and after the peak season.
There is no change to the Ocean Alliance's offering on the transpacific of 19 services across Asia to US routes - 12 on the US west coast and seven covering the east and Gulf coasts.
For the transatlantic, Ocean will still offer just two services, having reduced the number from four strings in last year's network changes.
Looking at the orderbook, CMA CGM has around 470,000 TEU of ULCVs and Evergreen 550,000 TEU stemmed for delivery this year and next, while Cosco/OOCL currently have no orders confirmed, although rumours persist of a big order from the Chinese state-owner.
Meanwhile, The Loadstar understands that the 2M alliance will shortly be announcing network changes from April 1, reflecting the partners' circa-300,000 TEU orderbook, of which MSC will take delivery of the lion's share of some 250,000 TEU of scrubber-fitted ULCVs.
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