News / HMM and ONE eye rising demand and launch China-Mexico express service

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Japan’s ONE and South Korean counterpart HMM have become the latest carriers to launch a China-Mexico service on the back of soaring demand on the trade.

Named FLX4 by HMM and ALX4 by ONE, the service will launch on 16 August with the departure of the 7,100 teu ONE Reputation from China.

The service’s port rotation is Shanghai-Busan-Lazaro Cardenas.

The partners have yet to announce other vessel details – but similar services operated by MSC and CMA CGM typically assign seven-to-eight vessels to maintain weekly schedules, although MSC’s Dahlia and CMA CGM’s M2X services include more port calls.

“We have launched the FLX as cargo demand from China to Mexico increases,” an HMM official said.

“The new service will provide customers with a premium loop rotation serving the Far East Asia to Mexico trade, as well as additional network coverage between Asia and Mexico.

“The FLX will be joined with our existing NW1, NW2, and NW3 New West Latin America services to provide an extensive network connecting Asia and South America,” they added.

The new service is an extension of the relationship between HMM and ONE on the Asia-Latin America trade, where they jointly operate three strings, in cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd and MSC.

Although HMM, ONE and Hapag are part of THE Alliance, the Asia-Latin America services are outside its formal scope.

According to the latest Container Trade Statistics data, 180,000 teu was shipped from Asia to Mexico in May, and the latest port congestion levels from liner database eeSea show congestion in Mexico’s three Pacific gateways – Ensenada, Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas – has consistently risen since the beginning of the year.

At the time of writing, some 63% of the vessels at Lazaro Cardenas are waiting to berth, compared with 50% at Ensenada and 45% at Manzanillo.

The surge in Asia-Mexico volumes, and the addition of new capacity to cater for it, is expected to strain capacity at Ensenada and Manzanillo especially, according to a recent Loadstar Premium analysis of the trade, which found that Manzanillo and Ensenada operated at 92% and 116% utilisation respectively during 2023.

Lazaro Cardenas, operated at just 58% of capacity last year, which would explain why ONE and HMM chose it as the Mexican port of call for their new service.