The year 2025 will see the ocean carrier world move from a setup of three mega alliances to a system of four big players. These will consist of one alliance that continues unchanged, two reshaped alliances, and one big standalone carrier.
In the latest edition of our Alphaliner Newsletter, we look at the history of carrier alliances, and illustrate how the new setup of 2025 will change market dynamics in container shipping.
When talking about ocean carrier alliances, it is worth understanding that the combined capacity of the member lines does not equal alliance capacity. Each carrier only contributes a certain share of their fleet to their alliance and the ‘exposure’ can vary from as low as 26% (MSC) to as high as 83% (YML).
In the new 2025 setup of global carrier alliances, the majority of services will not deploy mixed fleets. Instead, alliances will try and staff loops only with tonnage from a single member, but share container slot capacity across their joint portfolio of services.
