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Australian and New Zealand exporters to North America are set to get the second direct service to the North American east coast after MSC announced today that it will launch the new Australasia and US east coast Eagle service in February next year, as part of its continued efforts to build a standalone global network.
“This move will ensure service continuity and strengthens MSC’s commitment as an individual carrier offering a direct link between Oceania and the US East Coast,” the line said in a customer advisory.
The Geneva-headquartered carrier did not reveal vessel details, but said the weekly Eagle service will deploy 11 ships and feature the following port rotation: Philadelphia-Savannah-Freeport (Bahamas)-Rodman-Papeete-Auckland-Sydney-Melbourne-Brisbane-Tauranga-Rodman-Cristobal-Philadelphia.
According to the eeSea liner database, the only existing service between Oceania and the North American east coast is Maersk Line’s OC1 string, on which MSC and Hapag-Lloyd charter slots, and which MSC dubs Oceania Loop 2.
The OC1 service calls at Charleston rather than Savannah; in New Zealand it calls at Tauranga and Port Chalmers rather than Auckland; and features a call at Colombia’s Caribbean transhipment hub of Cartagena on its backhaul leg, instead of Freeport Bahamas, as proposed in MSC’s forthcoming Eagle service.
However, it also deploys 11 vessels – suggesting this is the minimum number of ships needed to maintain a weekly rotation – ranging between 3,000 teu and 3,700 teu.
Two other services connect Oceania directly with North America’s west coast – Maersk’s PANZ service, jointly operated with Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM-owned ANL, which both contribute vessels, and on which MSC also charters slots.
Maersk also operates the two-vessel SSEA service in cooperation with Swire, which connects French Polynesia, Western Samoa and Fiji with Long Beach and Oakland.
It is not a large trade, according to the latest data from Container Trades Statistics, the first five months of this year has seen 103,500 teu shipped from Oceania to the US, 5.8% up on the previous year, with 98,800 teu shipped in the the other direction, some 6% down year-on-year.
Comment on this article
Dominic Enthoven
July 25, 2025 at 5:51 amCMA CGM also operate the weekly PAD product from Oceania to ECNA and Europe. from next year there will be 3 direct services from which to choose.