Container Freight Alliance Announces its Latest Port Rotations

WORLDWIDE – In container freight news this week the five members of the THE Alliance; Hapag-Lloyd, K Line, MOL, NYK, and Yang Ming, have released plans to enhance its previously announced port rotation in the Mediterranean-North America East Coast trade lane with a new cooperation which will see a prioritisation of Italian, French, and Spanish ports into two dedicated services with what the shipping lines involved hope will be much improved transit times.

The port rotation of the AL 6 service will be streamlined and the Spanish ports of Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencia and Algeciras will be served through a new cooperation with ZIM Line on the latter’s existing Mediterranean-North America loop. This additional service will be branded as the AL7. The Italian ports of Salerno, Livorno, La Spezia, Genoa as well as Fos in France will remain part of the AL 6 service as previously announced.

By differentiating the port coverage within the Mediterranean the members of THE Alliance say they will offer their customers superior transit times between the two important regions US/Canada and Mediterranean. The new port rotation of the AL 6 service will be:

• Salerno – Livorno – La Spezia – Genoa – FOS – Halifax – New York – Norfolk – Savannah – Salerno

The port coverage of THE Alliance in the AL 7 will be as follows:

• Barcelona – Tarragona – Valencia – Algeciras – Halifax – New York – Norfolk – Savannah – Valencia – Tarragona – Barcelona

Both services will be launched at the beginning of April 2017 along with the implementation of the entire THE Alliance product, subject to completion of all relevant regulatory requirements. The partners plan to deploy a fleet of more than 240 modern ships in the Asia/Europe, North Atlantic and Trans-Pacific trade lanes including the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf/Red Sea. The service network is expected to cover more than 24 ports in Asia including ten Chinese and five Japanese ports with direct calls as well as 20 ports in the US and Canada, six North European and 13 Mediterranean ports, six ports in the Middle East and six ports in Central America/Caribbean.

Photo: Zim will lend a hand with the new schedules.