As a follow up to the January 23 post about the new Maersk /Hapag-Lloyd Gemini Cooperation, it will be business as usual for the time being. The official launch date of the new artrangement is the end of January 2025, when Maersk leaves the M2 Alliance and Hapag-Lloyd leaves THE Alliance.
Today's (January 26) arrival of NYK Constellation on THE Alliance's AL5 North Europe - North American, is much like ZIM's January 23 arrival: there is a lot of H-L orange and UASC green showing. The ship is eastbound from Saint John, NB for Southampton. (The port rotation is Southampton – Le Havre – Rotterdam – Hamburg – Antwerp – Halifax – Port Everglades – Cartagena – (Panama) – Rodman – Los Angeles/Long Beach – Oakland – Rodman – (Panama) – Cartagena – Caucedo – St. John - Halifax – Southampton.)
My totally unscientific analysis of the visible containers reveals more than half are identifiable as Hapag-Lloyd or United Arab Shipping Company. A loss of all that cargo would certainly make a serious dent in THE Alliance's bottom line.
The NYK Constellation is one of the seven Daedalus class ships on this particular service. Built in 2007 by Hyundai Ulsan, it is a 55,534 gt, 65,919 dwt ship with a capacity of 4922 TEU including 330 reefers.
Very few of the visible containers are identifiable as belonging to THE Alliance's Japanese partner ONE or its constituent members K-Line, NYK or MOL. Leased containers cannot be associated with any particular line, but even so they are less than half the visible boxes.
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