Announcing the details of their revamped service network for 2019, THE Alliance, comprising five major container shipping companies as Hapag-Lloyd, K Line, MOL, NYK, and Yang Ming, said it will cover 76 ports in Asia, Europe including Mediterranean, North and Central America, the Middle East, Red Sea and Indian Subcontinent, with the deployment of over 249 efficient container ships.
The major enhancement of THE Alliance includes a newly designed pendulum service to replace Far East Europe 1 service (FE1), Pacific Southwest 1 service (PS1) and Pacific Southwest 2 service (PS2), and a new Pacific Northwest 4 service (PN4), offering more direct calls across North America West Coast, Europe and Asia. The launch of PN4 service is expected to provide more efficient links between Asia and PNW.
Moving forward, a necessary capacity upgrade to the existing Asia-Europe network and optimized port-pair connections are planned to be implemented to address greater reliability and stability in service quality.
The enhanced service network is scheduled to launch in 2019, subject to necessary regulatory approvals.
Recently, THE Alliance announced it will cooperate with members of The Ocean Alliance, China Cosco Shipping, French giant CMA CGM, and Chinese OOCL, to enhance their Mediterranean-US East Coast service AL6 (Atlantic 6).