The CKYH Alliance said it has formed a partnership with Evergreen Line on the Asia-Europe trade due to start from the second quarter of 2012.
The alliance will see the lines run eight loops from Asia to Northern Europe and four from Asia to the Mediterranean, all operated with ships of between 8,000 to 13,000 TEUs. The CKYH Alliance and Evergreen don’t currently partner on Asia-Europe services.
The alliance is the latest to drastically reshape the service landscape of the Asia-Europe trade, which has been beleaguered by overcapacity and rock bottom rates throughout 2011.
The CKYH Alliance said in a statement that further details of the partnership will be provided later.
The CKYH carriers (COSCO Container Lines, “K” Line, Yang Ming, and Hanjin Shipping) currently operate four Asia-Northern Europe loops and three Asia-Med loops, which together employ 66 ships,. Fourteen of those vessels are larger than 10,000 TEUs (12 from COSCO and two from Hanjin).
The lines rationalized Asia-Europe capacity in July when they eliminated one Asia-Northern Europe loop.
Evergreen, meanwhile, has 21 ships deployed on the Asia-Europe trade (20 on its two own-operated loops, and one on a China-Northern Europe service operated by a consortium of four carriers). It also takes slots on three other services.
If the plans for 12 loops are realized, the five carriers would then be deploying between 96 and 132 vessels in the trade (based on eight- to 11-ships strings) from April.
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