The New World Alliance — APL, Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) and MOL — will from mid-May divide their weekly transpacific PS3 loop into two shuttle services to split coverage between China and Japan.
The new Japan-America Shuttle (JAS) service will be a joint operation between MOL (three ships) and Taiwanese carrier Evergreen Line (one ship) with APL and HMM taking space from their alliance partner. The JAS, set to start on May 14, will create additional stops in Shimizu and Osaka. Four as yet unspecified 2,800-TEU to 3,000-TEU vessels will call Osaka (Wednesday), Kobe (Thursday), Nagoya (Friday), Shimizu (Saturday), Tokyo (Sunday/Monday), Los Angeles (Wednesday/Thursday) and back to Osaka (Wednesday).
“Exclusive focus on Japanese ports will eliminate many of the operational risks inherent with more comprehensive services,” the New World carriers said in a statement.
The revised PS3 service will commence from Ningbo on May 10 using four ships in the same capacity range as the JAS with a full itinerary of Ningbo (Saturday), Shanghai (Sunday/Monday), Los Angeles (Friday/Sunday), and back to Ningbo (Saturday). The service will offer a transit time of 11 days from Shanghai to Los Angeles, matching the best available according to ComPair Data
The change will only add some 1,000 TEUs per week to the transpacific trade as the eight ships on the JAS and new PS3 will replace four larger MOL ships averaging 5,140 TEUs deployed on the current PS3 operation. At the time of writing it is not clear where the four MOL ships will be redeployed.
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