[271014.EN.SEA] More Asia-Europe, Transpacific Services to be Cut Over Winter

CONTAINER shipping lines, including Maersk and the G6 Alliance, are cancelling more services on the transpacific and Asia-Europe routes over the slack winter season.

The Central China (CC2) service to the US west coast will be temporarily halted in response to "seasonal changes in market demand". The service is provided by G6 members APL, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, MOL, NYK and OOCL.

The last sailing of the service is scheduled for October 31. The alliance said all ports called by CC2 will be covered by other services, reported Lloyd's List.

The CC2 is operated by four vessels with an average total capacity of 5,800 TEU.

In total, there are 57 services that cover Asia and the North American west coast, although many of those stop at the west coast on their way to the east coast, South America and Caribbean, or they are pendulum services. The G6 Alliance is an operator on 14 of these services.

The axing of these non-direct services leaves a total of 38 dedicated Asia-US west coast strings.

The report estimates the service suspension will remove 1.6 per cent of capacity from the market.

Last week, the G6 announced it would combine its NYE and SCE service heading from Asia to the North American east coast. This would remove 3.3 per cent of capacity on the transpacific east coast trade lane.

Maersk Line is cancelling four sailings on the Asia-North Europe trade lane.

The carrier said that due to a "predicted lack of demand", it would cancel four AE6 sailings scheduled for the fourth quarter.

One of these cancellations will take place in October, two in November and the final one in December.

The service is operated with vessels averaging 6,500 TEU in size.

Extra calls will be added to either the AE2 or AE7 services over the period to cover customer requirements, the Danish line said.

In September, the G6 Alliance announced it would cancel a sailing of its Asia-Europe Loop 7 service leaving Qingdao in mid-November.

Source : HKSG.