[070112.EN.SEA] CKYH Forms Alliance With Evergreen On 12 Asia-Europe-Med Services

CKYH carriers Cosco Container Lines, "K" Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin Shipping have joined Taiwan's Evergreen Line in a new plan to work together in offering 12 Asia-Europe and Asia-Mediterranean services from the second quarter of 2012.

Evergreen will not join CKYH Alliance, said the statements, but it will coordinate with the group to provide a more intensive sailing schedules to the level of eight service loops from Asian ports to north Europe main ports, and four service loops from Asia to Mediterranean ports every week. Most in the 12 loops will range from 8,000-TEU to 13,000-TEU.

This move follows the recent MSC-CMA CGM and Grand-New World's G6 partnerships, leaving only China Shipping, CSAV, Zim, PIL and UASC as standalone independent carriers in the Asia-Europe trade among the top 20 ocean container lines.

The CKYH Alliance said in a statement that further details of its cooperation with Evergreen will be released later.

CKYH members run four Asia-Northern Europe and three Asia-Med services with a deployment of 66 vessels, according to ComPair Data, adding that 14 deployed ships are larger than 10,000 TEU, comprising 12 from Cosco and two from Hanjin).

Also, Evergreen operates a fleet of 21 ships on the Asia-Europe trade, containing 20 vessels on its two owned-operated strings, and one on a China-Northern Europe loop run by a consortium of four carriers, reported American Shipper.

So if the 12 strings can be launched as planned, the five carriers of the new CKYH-Evergreen alliance would deploy 96 to 132 vessels in the trade from April, an estimate based on the assumption of eight to eleven ships per loop.

Source : HKSG.