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The Ocean Alliance of CMA CGM, Cosco, OOCL and Evergreen has announced that they are extending their alliance for another 5 years, to 2032. In a webinar on Liner Alliances, Drewry consultancy experts analysed and compared the alliances post introduction of the Gemini Cooperation. They stressed that the Ocean Alliance will be the "the dominant player" among the alliances, when comparing service frequency and the number of loops, particularly on the Asia-Europe route, ahead of the new Gemini alliance (Maersk + Hapag-Lloyd), MSC and the remaining carriers of THE Alliance. Drewry said that, apart from on the transatlantic, the Ocean Alliance would have by far the greatest number of east-west trade loops, with 40 across its network, followed by Gemini with 21, THEA with 19 and MSC with 15. MSC has the greatest reduction in the number of loops, although this is mitigated by the independent loops it has already launched outside the 2M alliance, Drewry noted.

As a result of Maersk’s departure from the 2M alliance next year, Drewry said that in its new Gemini VSA with Hapag-Lloyd, where the German carrier is the junior partner, the number of loops marketed by Maersk would be reduced. Drewry discussed the merits and potential obstacles of the ‘hub & spoke’ operation central to the Gemini partners’ VSA strategy and argued that its robustness would be a critical factor in the success or failure of the concept. It was noted that ‘Managing the network to ensure reliability, managing the terminals with very high port call sizes, big exchanges and a lot of pressure on yard management is going to be very challenging on a day-to-day operational basis.’

Source: Loadstar