News / MSC revives Pearl transpacific service for early peak season

Photo: VesselFinder

MSC has followed Maersk in introducing another transpacific service to meet the peak demand, the world’s largest liner operator reintroducing its Pearl service.

The Pearl string will be restarted on Saturday, with a 42-day port rotation of Yantian-Xiamen-Long Beach-Yantian.

The service, using 4,800 teu to 8,200 teu ships, ran previously from February to August 2025, before being withdrawn.

MSC’s Pearl revival comes shortly after Maersk Line introduced an ad hoc TPX service to meet demand for Asia-US West Coast sailings.

Linerlytica argued that the AI boom and demand for renewable energy products, propelled by the Strait of Hormuz closure, were supporting the early peak season.

“The positive momentum is driven by both a shortage of vessel space and box equipment, and the tight market is expected to last through July, prompting carriers to redeploy ships to the transpacific,” the consultancy said.

Last Friday, the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index showed the Shanghai-US West Coast rate gained 10% from 29 May, to $4,552 per 40ft, while the Shanghai-US East Coast rate rose 8% to $5,741 per 40ft.

After successfully implementing peak season surcharges on 1 June, liner operators are trying for another round of rate hikes on 15 June – and expectations, Linerlytica said, of the next rate hike sticking were tempered by the added capacity from Pearl and TPX.

The revived Pearl service will start with the 4,872 teu MSC Lyse V, the initial cycle scheduled with five ships, with one blank sailing. The other ships being the 5,044 teu MSC Tampico V, 8,182 teu MSC Douala VIII, 8,266 teu MSC Archimidis VIII, and the 5,711 teu MSC Dymphna.

Several of these vessels are being diverted from the Indus Express service, linking the Indian subcontinent/Middle East to the US east coast, after demand on this lane softened.

The Indus Express service ran a Port Qasim-Nhava Sheva-Mundra-Caucedo-Freeport (Bahamas)-Savannah-Charleston-Norfolk-Baltimore-New York rotation, via the Cape of Good Hope.

The last sailing was the 4,992 teu MSC Pratiti, which departed Mundra on 3 June. It has omitted calls at Abu Dhabi and Jebel Ali since March, due to the conflict, operated with 11 ships of 4,200 teu-7,800 teu, which are set to be redeployed.

However, MSC will maintain the INDUSA service to provide India-US East Coast connections, with a truncated rotation, calling at Mundra-Nhava Sheva-Colombo-New York-Norfolk-Mundra, deploying 11 ships of 6,600 teu-9,600 teu.

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