[121210.EN.SEA] Carrier Finds Its Niche In The Transpacific Market

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TRANSPACIFIC volumes soared earlier this year, attracting the attention of many industry players. As the year progressed shipping lines announced a slew of new services, while other carriers entered the trade for the first time. As volumes now begin to slow for the traditional end of year slack season, and with no clear indication as to how the trade will perform in 2011, there is one carrier that we spoke to recently that is very upbeat on its prospects for the coming year. The Container Shipping Manager recently caught up with Matson Shipping Line president, Matthew J Cox, on his recent visit to the Far East to learn why he is so confident about his company’s efforts in the transpacific next year… Prior to the recent launch of its CLX2 service, Matson had been operating just one loop on the transpacific trade with its CLX 1 service for the past four and a half years. The small scale transpacific operation has proven very successful for Matson, as the shipping line has managed to create for itself a niche market within one of the world’s largest trades. For Mr Cox, the key to the carrier’s success has been in its premium service offering it provides to its customers. Matson’s goal from the beginning of its foray into the transpacific trade was to see whether they could, as an independent, unaligned carrier, provide a premium service out of three central Chinese ports, at a time when the larger carriers were increasing their vessel sizes and operating within alliances and the differences in service between the carriers was becoming less and less. Part of the premium service offering was to keep the port rotation as simple as possible by not calling on the number of ports that the major players did, thus giving them the leading transit time in the market. "It wasn’t just about transit time, but it was also about cargo availability,” Mr Cox added. "We, at that point were able to commit to moving 100 per cent of our cargo within two shifts or within 24 hours and make that cargo available at an off dock container location on wheels for easy pick up out of the congested port area of Long Beach,” he said. Source : CSM, 26.11.10..