News / Premier Alliance unveils major port changes in 2026 Asia-Europe network

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The Premier Alliance is set to considerably revamp its Asia-Europe network next year, according to its newly published 2026 schedules.

Customers have reported deteriorating service levels in recent months, as the alliance’s services, into North Europe especially, have been afflicted by port congestion

One UK freight forwarder told The Loadstar: “I have heard there is a bit of a storm and noise around poor service levels, particularly around the Premier Alliance.

“From a UK perspective, the FE3 service, which calls North Europe before UK, is being seriously delayed in Algeciras/Rotterdam, adding approximately two weeks to transit times; so to avoid this, pressure is being put on 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 carriers are putting in contingencies and omitting Algeciras and Rotterdam and discharging Rotterdam cargo in Antwerp instead,” the forwarder explained.

The Premier Alliance has clearly taken these concerns onboard when putting together next year’s schedule, with revised port rotations and, in some cases, a far slimmer port call list – focusing on hub ports – that is beginning to resemble the Gemini Cooperation’s hub-and-spoke system.

Next year’s FE3 service changes its ex-Asia rotation, dropping calls at Busan and Xiamen in favour of Ningbo and Yantian, respectively; while in North Europe, Rotterdam has been dropped in favour of Antwerp and the UK call at Felixstowe has been pushed up the call list.

The new rotation of the FE3 is Qingdao-Ningbo-Yantian-Singapore-Algecrias-Felixstowe-Hamburg-Antwerp-Qingdao.

Similarly, today’s FP1 service, which features a series of calls at Japanese ports at the beginning of its rotation and then calls at Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Le Havre, appears to have been rebranded as the FE1, and will instead offer much higher capacity out of South-east Asia.

The FE1 rotation is Laem Chabang-Cai Mep-Singapore-Rotterdam-Hamburg-Singapore-Laem Chabang.

The FE4 service will also see calls dropped, at Ningbo, Kaohsiung, Yantian, Cai Mep, Felixstowe, and Algeciras, and will instead offer a rationalised rotation of Shanghai-Pusan-Rotterdam-Hamburg-Le Havre-Shanghai.

All direct calls at Japanese ports are set to be dropped from the Asia-Europe network, and in a move that most clearly resembles the Gemini strategy, Premier partner ONE said the group would introduce a new feeder network connecting Japan to another member HMM’s hub in Busan.

ONE continued: “Additional dedicated feeder services will be provided for Kaohsiung, Xiamen, Tokyo, Kobe, and Nagoya, transiting via Busan to ensure seamless and reliable connections to the main east–west Loops.”

There is also the question of the alliance’s vessel cooperation with MSC on selected Asia-Europe services: of the current six Asia-North Europe services, MSC is the tonnage provider on two – the FE5 and FE6, marketed as Lion and Swan – and the tonnage provider on two of Premier’s four Asia-Mediterranean strings, the MD3 and MD4, known at MSC as the Tiger and Dragon, respectively.

On the 2026 Premier Alliance schedules there is no mention of the FE5’s westbound call at MSC’s Portuguese hub of Sines, nor backhaul calls at Dubai and Abu Dhabi ,which all feature on its Lion schedule; and there is also no mention of the Swan’s North Europe calls at Aarhus, Gothenburg, and Bremerhaven.

Similarly, on the Asia-Mediterranean services, where for example MSC’s current Tiger service features three calls in West Africa on the backhaul leg, there is no mention of these on the alliance’s 2026 schedule.

Asked by The Loadstar if these omissions suggested the cooperation with MSC could be coming to an end, a ONE spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the cooperation with MSC on the Asia-Europe services will continue in 2026.”

The carrier did, however, add that its services next year would be “supported by additional capacity from newbuild vessels scheduled for delivery throughout 2025 and into 2026”.

However, one big change for next year is the dropping of two calls at the Israeli port of Ashdod, on the Asia-Mediterranean network, from the MD1 and MD3 rotations; effectively removing the alliance’s connections with Israel altogether.

ONE added that it would continue to route its vessels via the Cape of Good Hope next year, although it said it was “closely monitoring the situation around the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Suez Canal, and will keep our customers updated on the East West Product should any changes occur”.