Evergreen and HMM concentrate Far East–North Europe capacity in fewer ports

The North Europe trade is seeing major differences in potential port call sizes as carriers concentrate capacity across fewer discharge ports, according to Alphaliner.

Congestion is and will remain a growing problem for the liner sector. Climate change resulting in extreme weather with typhoons, heavy rainfall, but also periods of excessive drought, is increasingly playing havoc with liner schedules.

On the port side, a widespread comment made by terminal operators is that the pressure on their facilities is amplified by the fact that call sizes on ‘megamax’ ships have increased significantly over the past years.

Information on the exact call sizes is not publicly available as it is considered to be commercially sensitive. One can, however, get an idea of potential call sizes by dividing a service’s nominal capacity by the loop’s number of discharge ports.

Alphaliner has carried out this exercise for the Far East – North Europe westbound trade. The average vessel size per individual loop was divided by the number of westbound stops in Europe, with the Moroccan port of Tanger Med exceptionally considered as ‘European’ for the purposes of the survey as it can be the first port of discharge for vessels arriving from the Far East.

There are huge differences in the potential call sizes between the different loops. MSC’s ‘Swan’ service with ships of 15,000 teu has on average six discharge ports in Europe, resulting in a theoretical volume of 2,500 teu per port.

At the other end we see Evergreen’s ‘CEM’ service with only three westbound calls for ships of an average size of 23,490 teu, resulting in 7,830 teu per port.

The Premier Alliance ‘FE3’ loop, operated by HMM tonnage of 22,200 teu on average, discharges in three ports, resulting in theoretical call sizes of 7,400 teu per port.

When the Gemini Cooperation of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd launched its hub and spoke concept in February 2025 with a very limited number of calls per mainline loop, this was considered to be a novelty.

The Danish and German carriers meanwhile added extra calls at Gothenburg, Aarhus and Antwerp on the Far East – North Europe loops.

Source: Alphaliner