The CKYH Alliance lines, Cosco, “K’’ Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin are to implement a winter capacity withdrawal programme on the Asia-North Europe trade from mid-October, in what is being seen as the first of a series of similar moves by other lines serving the trade.
The current five loop coverage of the trade will be rationalised to four in a move that should take out around 8,000 TEUs of weekly capacity for the upcoming slack season.
The identity of the loop being withdrawn has not been released but according to line sources, it is highly likely it is the NE4 service, which is tonnaged by “K’’ Line and Yang Ming and has a rotation of Ningbo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Singapore, Yantian, Kaohsiung, Ningbo.
Any other service withdrawal within the alliance is unlikely, particularly because the NE2 service is the only CKYH service covering the Taiwan-North Europe volume flow and also caters for Japan cargo over Kaohsiung transhipment, and the other three loops, NE1, NE3 and NE6 deploy 13,000 TEU vessels.
The capacity withdrawal could also affect lines such as China Shipping and United Arab Shipping Co (UASC) that have slots on a number of the CKYH Alliance’s Asia-Europe services.
Cargonews Asia
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