Grand Alliance EU 5 'PULL OUT'

[brimar]

Hapag LLoyd & its Grand Alliance partners have suspended the EU5 weekly service between Europe & Asia with immediate effect...8 vessels are involved.

[DanSTN]

Not suprised to hear this. The Grand Alliance are perhaps the last of the 'majors' to pull capacity from the Far East-Europe route.

What is very interesting though is that in the last few weeks MSC, CMA-CGM and Maersk have all started sending ships via the Cape of Good Hope on the eastbound leg for some of their services. This is not because of the piracy threat in the Gulf of Aden, but because it is now far cheaper to do this than send a ship through the Suez Canal, even though it adds a week to the journey time!

According to Lloyds List the lines may soon start to send ships via the Cape on the dominant westbound leg as well.

The implications of this are significant:

- Suez canal traffic could decrease dramatically
- Excess capacity can be brought back into service as more ships will be required to maintain weekly schedule
- European Importers will face transit times increased by a week

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

[Andrew McAlpine]

This is not a surprise as the Grand Alliance has not made any capacity cuts on the Europe - Far East trade up to date.