Peter T. Leach, Senior Editor | Sep 07, 2012 2:10PM EDT
The Grand Alliance and Zim Integrated Container Services plan to merge two of their joint trans-Pacific services to the U.S. East Coast into a single loop as part of their winter suspension program.
The suspension follows the announcement earlier this week that the G6 Alliance between the Grand Alliance and the New World Alliance would suspend one of its Asia-Europe services.
In the trans-Pacific, the Grand Alliance carriers and Zim, which operate the South China East Coast Express and South China East Coast Express 2 services, will merge them into a single combined SCE loop in October.
OOCL, which made the announcement, said in its statement that the two services are being merged “in consideration of the forecast imbalance in the market in the winter.” The new combined service will continue through the winter until further notice.
OOCL also said it would suspend a sailing of its Central China Express service during the National Day Holidays in China in October.
The first sailing of the newly combined SCE trans-Pacific loop will be the Zim Shanghai from Pusan on Oct. 8 on the following port rotation: Pusan, Xiamen, Kaohsiung, Shekou, Yantian, Hong Kong, Manzanillo (Panama), Kingston, New York, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Kingston, Manzanillo (Panama) and back to Pusan.
The last sailing of the SCE loop will be the America Express from Kaohsiung on Oct. 5 and Hong Kong on Oct. 8.
The last sailing of the SCE 2 loop will be the Hyundai Supreme from Pusan on Oct. 1.
During the National Day Holidays in China, OOCL will suspend the sailing of the NYK Artemis in its CCX service from Qingdao on Oct. 10. As part of the service adjustment, OOCL will add a port call at Yangshan on Oct. 12 by the OOCL Ningbo on its Super Shuttle Express service.
Contact Peter T. Leach at pleach@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter @petertleach.
