A review of the Far East – India Subcontinent/Middle East/Red Sea trade lane shows that COSCO Group is the most dominant player in that market.
Unsurprisingly, Asian carriers account for the vast majority of lines on this route, and the Europeans involved are generally mainline operators. The only exception here is Denmark’s Unifeeder, which is however controlled by the Dubai-based DP World, so that the route corridor is one of Unifeeder’s home turfs.
COSCO Group ( COSCOSHIPPING + OOCLLogistics ) is in lead position with about 250,000 teu of capacity deployed, which represents 12.7% of all operated slots in the trade. The Chinese group is also the only player that operates ‘Megamaxes’ on this corridor. Its ‘MEA5’ service, part of the OCEAN Alliance network, is run with five such vessels, averaging some 19,000 teu, as of the start of July.
Among the Europeans, MSCCargo (8.8%) and cmacgm (8.5%) are the biggest players, ranked second and third after COSCO Group. The French carrier is amongst the rare main line operators that still, in July, offers dedicated service between the Far East and Red Sea. CMA CGM operates the ‘REX2’ with a fleet of 3,700–8,500 teu vessels.
