2M Alliance
2M Alliance
In 2015 Maersk Line and MSC launched the 10-year 2M Alliance vessel-sharing agreement on the Asia-Europe, trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trades, in an effort to better utilize their combined capacity in the wake of their failed bid to launch the P3 Network. The arrangement, which includes a series of slot exchanges and slot purchases on East-West routes, also involves Maersk Line and MSC taking over a number of charters and operations of vessels chartered to Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM).
In an effort to forge even closer working relationships between the carriers, technology specialists from MSC and Maersk have joined forces [in 2018] with their counterparts from CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express (ONE) to form a neutral, non-profit entity to discuss the digitalization, standardization and interoperability of the container shipping industry in the future, rather than develop or operate their own digital platform. The information technologyg standards that they jointly create will be openly avaiable, free of charge, to all stakeholders in the wider container shipping industry.