The six lines involved in the G6 Alliance covering the Asia/North Europe and Asia/Mediterranean trades, are all set to expand their joint service operations to the Asia/USEC trades using the Suez Canal as the transit zone

PR News Service can exclusively report that Hapag-Lloyd, NYK, OOCL, APL,

MOL (Mitsui-OSK Lines) and Hyundai Merchant Marine are launching a new Asia/USEC service using the Suez Canal for East/West transit at the beginning of the second quarter. The new service is expected to operate with 10 x 7,500 teu vessels, and port rotation details are being finalized.

Effectively, the new service will cover southern China, SE Asia, (Suez

Canal transit), Algeciras, and ports on the US East coast, then back east via the Suez.

Geographically and to offer the most competitive transit times, New York,

Norfolk and Charleston would figure as the most obvious USEC port calls, but this is not yet confirmed.

As the new service is phased in, the Grand Alliance (Hapag-Lloyd, NYK,

OOCL) and the New World Alliance (APL, MOL, HMM) are expected to merge their existing AEX and SZX services, a move that takes out around 9,000 teu of weekly capacity respectively.

The AEX service operates with 10 x 5,000/6,500 teu vessels and covers: Cai Mep, Laem Chabang, Singapore, (Suez Canal transit), Halifax, New York, Savannah, Norfolk, New York, Halifax, (Suez Canal transit), Singapore, Cai Mep.

Of the ten vessels in the service, six are operated by OOCL, and four by Hapag-Lloyd.

The SZX service is a US-flag operated service with APL deploying all 8 x 4,500/5,000 teu vessels.

Port coverage: Singapore, Colombo, (Suez Canal transit), Port Said, New York, Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk, Port Said, (Suez Canal transit),

Jebel Ali, Karachi, Singapore. MOL and HMM have slots on this service, but that agreement does not include coverage of Port Said and Karachi.

Hanjin also has slots on the service and markets it as the AWZ service. There is also an understanding that changes are underway to the joint SVS/AUE3 service operated by MOL and Evergreen and on which the former deploys nine of the ten 5,400/6,400 teu vessels.

More follows shortly, but the big news here is that the G6 Alliance, launched 12 months ago to cover the Asia/Europe trades, is spreading to the Asia/USEC, and the Suez transit is being chosen in favor of the Panama route in this case.