Every few years, ocean carriers organise themselves in new alliances. By pooling together fleets of ships and shipping containers on behalf of each other, it is possible to cover larger geographic areas and improve the shipping services. On April 1, Evergreen Line will form the new Ocean Alliance together with some of the world’s leading ocean carriers, becoming the largest ocean alliance for Asian-European trade.
What is the new Ocean Alliance?
The new Ocean Alliance will consist of Evergreen Line, CMA CGM, Cosmo Shipping, and OOCL. In addition to the Ocean Alliance, there are two other alliances: 2M and The Alliance. While the Ocean Alliance will represent 37 percent of all the Asia-Europe trades’ container capacity, 2M will represent 34 percent, and The Alliance 29 percent, making the Ocean Alliance the largest for Asian-European trade. The Ocean Alliance will deploy around 350 container vessels with an estimated total carrying capacity of 3.5 million TEUs, and represent 38 percent of the entire global trade.
There are going to be 6 services connected to Asia and Europe per week in total. The Ocean Alliance will call 18 ports directly in Asia and 13 ports directly in Europe. From this year on, the Ocean Alliance will also call ports directly in the Baltic Sea area. One of them is the Port of Gdansk in Poland, which will open up the possibility for the alliance to also extend the feeder network further in the Baltic Sea area.
How will customers benefit from the new Ocean Alliance?
With joint forces, the Ocean Alliance will be able to improve service quality and schedule reliability. Customers will benefit from a competitive selection of sailing schedules and direct port pairs, fast transit times, and a highly efficient fleet of vessels to cater to the needs of today’s demanding and increasingly green global supply chains.
