A comparison between the new Asia–Europe networks recently unveiled by Gemini, MSC and the Premier Alliance shows that they are making very different strategical choices.
Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd will limit the number of direct calls on mainline services to an absolute minimum and implement a ‘hub and spoke’ concept, while MSC will continue to serve a wide range of smaller Asian, Scandinavian and Baltic ports directly.
Every alliance change is challenging for the big ports as they may win or lose business. The upcoming changes on 1 February 2025 appear to be good news for Singapore, Cai Mep, Felixstowe and Hamburg. Meanwhile, Antwerp, Yantian and Tanjung Pelepas will see fewer mainline vessels making weekly calls.
The Premier Alliance (ONE, HMM and Yang Ming), Gemini Cooperation (Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd) and MSC have all released two versions of their new Asia–Europe networks: a first one with loops routed via Suez and an alternative scenario with Cape-routings.
Source: Alphaliner
