Initially APL will be purchasing slots on the current AAUS service until April 2008. This will allow the AAUS partner lines to retain high system utilization in the slack season expected after Chinese New Year.
As from May onwards the lines will provide two fixed day weekly service loops with the following ports of call:
Northern loop: Yokohama ' Osaka ' Pusan ' Qingdao ' Shanghai ' Ningbo ' Melbourne ' Sydney ' Brisbane ' Yokohama.
Southern loop: Kaoshiung ' Yantian ' Hong Kong ' Melbourne ' Sydney ' Brisbane ' Kaoshiung.
The services will be operated with nine modern 2,500 TEU vessels (five in the northern loop and four in the southern loop) of which Hamburg S'd will provide three and Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine and APL two vessels each.
The two loop approach allows the lines to offer exceptional port coverage in Asia and some of the fastest transit-times northbound and southbound in the trade.
In conjunction with the above two loop AAUS service Hamburg S'd will continue to operate the Asia ' Australia/New Zealand service (ANZL) which covers Yokohama ' Kobe ' Shanghai ' Hong Kong ' Brisbane ' Tauranga ' Lyttelton ' New Plymouth ' Yokohama. From an Asia to Australia trade perspective the direct Shanghai and Hong Kong to Brisbane southbound transit times of 12 and 9 days, respectively, are of key importance.
The AAUS northern loop, the AAUS southern loop and the ANZL service together will result in Hamburg S'd being able to offer its customers three arrivals per week ex North/East Asia in Brisbane and two arrivals per week in Sydney and Melbourne.
