The much-discussed P3
Alliance – between Maersk
Line, MSC and CMA CGM
on the Asia-Europe and Asia-
North America trades – has
now met up with serious
competition.
This as the G6 Alliance
plans expansion to the Trans-
Pacific North America West
Coast and Trans-Atlantic
North America East Coast
trades. It lines up Alliance
members – APL, Hapag-
Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant
Marine, Mitsui OSK Lines,
Nippon Yusen Kaisha
(NYK) and Orient Overseas
Container Line – against the
obvious might of the world’s
top three container lines in
P3.
And the G6 move is adding
its own muscle on all the
East-West trade lanes in
2014. It will offer around
240 ships deployed, and
a significantly improved
network connecting 66
Asian, American and
European ports.
For example, on the Asia-
North America West Coast
trade, each
G6 Alliance
member will
be able to
offer almost
twice as
many sailings
as each can
under the
present and
separate
New World
Alliance
and Grand
Alliance.
The G6
Alliance plans to deploy
about 76 ships across twelve
services connecting 27
Asian and North America
West Coast ports. About 42
other ships will be deployed
across five services including
two pendulum services in
the Trans-Atlantic trade
lane. These will be calling
at 25 ports covering the US
East Coast, US West Coast,
Canada, Panama, Mexico,
Netherlands, the UK, France,
Belgium and Germany.
The new services are
scheduled
to begin in
the second
quarter of
2014, pending
regulatory
approval.
Details of
services and
port rotations
will be
announced at
a later date.
An interesting point
about this massive move is
that it might relieve the P3
Alliance of the suggestion of
anti-competitive action as
it awaits approval from the
competition authorities in
the US, Europe and China.
With these other six major
carriers taking them on in the
world’s main trades, a total of
nine lines will be added to the
other smaller container lines
which also ply the trades.
The G6 Alliance stressed
that members would continue
to market their services
individually as they do today.
And P3 has made the same
promise in its case before the
competition authorities.
But another case afoot
in Europe might throw a
spanner in both the P3 and
G6 cases before the anticompetition
bodies.
Fourteen of the world’s
top container carriers are
currently being investigated
by the European Commission
(EC) about whether they
have broken European
competition rules through
signalling their intended
freight rate increases to each
other. Brussels stated that the
companies had made regular
public announcements of
their price-increase intentions
through statements on their
websites and in the specialist
trade press.
The commission said the
practice might allow the
companies to signal their
future price intentions to
each other and may harm
competition and customers by
raising prices on the market
for container liner shipping
transport services. It makes
for interesting times ahead for
these two mighty alliances.
INSERT
On the Asia-North
America West Coast
trade, each G6
Alliance member
will be able to offer
almost twice as many
sailings.
