News / Premier Alliance to drop Algeciras calls in Asia-N Europe restructure

Photo: VesselFinder

The Premier Alliance is set to drop two weekly calls at the Spanish transhipment hub of Algeciras on its Asia-North Europe services as part of its continuing network restructuring.

Lead Premier Alliance partner ONE said the changes to the FE1 and FE3 services would result in “providing direct access to Le Havre from South-east Asia”, and “optimised routing to provide faster transit times to Antwerp and Felixstowe”, respectively.

Beginning with the departure of the 8,200 teu ONE Hamburg from Laem Chabang on 6 June, the Premier Alliance’s FE1 service will feature a port rotation of Laem Chabang-Cai Mep-Singapore-Rotterdam-Hamburg-Le Havre-Singapore-Laem Chabang.

This means Le Havre has replaced Algeciras as the last port of call in Europe before the backhaul leg begins.

ONE Hamburg has been brought in from the Premier Alliance’s FP1 transpacific service and, according to the eeSea liner database, the FE1 will be operated by 13 vessels with an average capacity of 8,200 teu.

The FE1 has undergone a radical transformation this year, from a Asia-North America-North Europe round-the-world service into a far more streamlined South-east Asia-North Europe service, jettisoning three calls in Japan.

Meanwhile, on the alliance’s FE3 service, operated in conjunction with MSC, which markets the string as the Condor service, the Algeciras call – the first in Europe on the rotation – will be dropped, with Felixstowe becoming the first port of call.

With the departure of the 24,000 teu HMM Dublin from Qingdao on 11 June, the new FE3 port rotation will be Qingdao-Ningbo-Yantian-Singapore-Felixstowe-Antwerp-Hamburg-Qingdao.

The move will come as a relief for UK shippers who spent much of last year complaining about FE3 reliability. In December, one forwarder told The Loadstar: “From a UK perspective, the FE3 which calls North Europe before UK is being seriously delayed in Algeciras and Rotterdam, putting approximately two weeks on transit times; so to avoid this, pressure is being put upon the carriers by us and shippers  to tranship UK cargo in Singapore onto the FP2/FE4, to reduce transit times.

“This in turn puts additional space pressure on these two UK services,” the forwarder added.

Putting Felixstowe as the first European port of call on the FE3 should resolve this, while the Rotterdam call was dropped from the service in March.

Last summer, ONE director of product and network for Europe and Africa Stanley Smulders told The Loadstar how port congestion in the Dutch hub was impacting liner services.

While MSC is listed as an alliance partner on FE3/Condor, it currently has no vessels deployed on the service, which will now be staffed by 15 ships provided by HMM, Yang Ming, and ONE, with an average capacity of 20,300 teu.

The two service changes “appears to indicate that the market to North Europe is sufficiently strong that there is no need to carry Mediterranean cargo to be transhipped in Algeciras”, said Vespucci Maritme CEO Lars Jensen, although he added that it would also likely result in lower emissions surcharges for European importers.

“Additionally, under the EU ETS rules, it means that the “carbon tax” to be paid will now be applicable only for emissions between Felixstowe and Hamburg, and not on the long voyage from Asia to Europe,” he said.