Manufacturing boom in India drives up intra-Asia freight rates
Resurgent demand for intra-Asia trade into India seems to have pushed short-term container freight rates ...
Hapag Lloyd and it’s the Alliance partner Ocean Network Express (ONE) have agreed to operate feeder services around the world together.
Under the terms of a “bilateral strategic feeder network cooperation agreement”, the lines will share space on their respective feeder vessels.
It began with the joint launch of the Bohai Express service in August and is to be extended to the intra-Europe trade this month with the launch of the North Sea Poland Express service.
Rolf Habben Jansen, Hapag-Lloyd CEO, said the new cooperation would strengthen the footprints of Hapag-Lloyd and the merged container operations of NYK, MOL and K Line in Europe, as well as expand both companies’ service portfolios in Asia.
“With this new cooperation, we are able to offer our customers worldwide a far better and consistent feeder network,” he added.
Other services set to see the slot sharing include the Baltic Express, North Sea Baltic Express, Russia Express, Sweden Denmark Express, Adria Express, Levante Express and Philippine Indonesia Express.
Since the reorganisation of the alliance structure, Mr Habben Jansen has repeatedly said that lines would likely deepen their cooperation beyond the deepsea trades into feeder, and even possibly inland haulage, operations.
It is a view that appeared to be reinforced by ONE chief executive Jeremy Nixon: “This new cooperation is another strong footnote to the existing bilateral partnership.
“We are convinced that together with Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express will continue to enrich our feeder network portfolio and provide more premium feeder service to our respective customers. Looking ahead, we are confident that the scope of this cooperation will be further broadened.”
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