MARITIME INDUSTRY WITNESSES THE GREATEST “SHAKE-UP” OF THE DECADE
Tonight, January 31, 2025, the maritime industry will undergo the largest restructuring in a decade as shipping lines “jump” from their current alliances on the main East-West trade routes.
THE Alliance will become the Premier Alliance, with Ocean Network Express (ONE), HMM, and Yang Ming Marine Transportation as partners, and Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) filling the gaps on the Asia-Europe routes.
MSC will “part ways” with Maersk in the 2M vessel-sharing agreement to operate independently, and the German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd will subsequently leave THE Alliance to join the Danish shipping company in a new alliance, which will be called the Gemini Cooperation.
The only alliance remaining intact from February 1, the Ocean Alliance, which includes COSCO, OOCL, CMA CGM, and Evergreen, will also have the largest market share and the broadest market coverage this year, according to analysis from Linerlytica, an Asia-based container shipping consultancy.
Data from rival Alphaliner shows that the Ocean Alliance will deploy a total of approximately 390 container ships with a nominal capacity estimated at nearly 5 million TEU.
Linerlytica data shows that the Ocean Alliance will have a “dominant” position on the Pacific route with 15 trips to the West Coast and 8 trips to the East Coast. This alliance will also have the broadest coverage to Northern Europe with the addition of a seventh service, equal to MSC’s coverage. MSC will remain the dominant shipping company in the Mediterranean, according to Linerlytica, with the Swiss shipping company providing six weekly services.
Linerlytica data shows that the Gemini Cooperation, comprising Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, will become the smallest alliance with the fewest weekly trips offered in 2025.
Attention is now shifting to how smoothly this alliance shake-up will proceed.
“We believe the upcoming alliance shake-up could disrupt schedules and tariff announcements… potentially preventing a steep decline in freight rates and keeping prices relatively high in the first half of 2025, signaling good news for trans-Pacific contract negotiations,” according to a recent maritime market report published earlier this month by HSBC.
Analysts at Copenhagen-based Sea-Intelligence have argued that since the announcement of the new alliance network by shipping lines more than four months ago, they have had sufficient time to prepare for a smooth transition to their new network.
“Certainly, there will be some operational hiccups—that is inevitable when hundreds of ships change schedules—but this is happening in the low season after the Lunar New Year, and hopefully, it will be manageable,” Sea-Intelligence noted in a recent weekly report.
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