CKYH to rationalize services

CKYH (Coscon, “K”LINE, Yang Ming, Hanjin Shipping) Alliance announced plans to rationalize its services in order to respond to growing uncertainty in the world’s economy.

CKYH has already suspended the AWE (All Water East Coast) Central Loop from early October 2008, and reduced the total capacity in the CKYH AWE trade by around 18.5%. CKYH also suspended their EMX (East Med Express) service in the Asia-East Mediterranean trade from the middle of October 2008. CKYH is now conducting an extensive study to further restructure the Asia-East Mediterranean services, including the ADX (Aegean Sea Direct Express) service.

In addition, CKYH will be making service changes as follows:

Firstly, the current capacity deployed in the TAS-1 (North Transatlantic) service connecting the U.S. and Europe, will be reduced by approximately 18%, which will be effective from the middle of November 2008. Existing calling ports and schedules will remain unchanged, but the size of the vessels deployed will be modified.

Secondly, the capacity in the PSW (Pacific South West) trade will be decreased. The current MAP (Mediterranean / Asia / America Pendulum) service connecting the Mediterranean, Asia and the U.S. is to be terminated effective from early 2009. This is around 13~15% of the total capacity deployed in the PSW trade by the CKYH Alliance. However, CKYH will utilize current services, such as SEA (South China Express) as a substitution for the MAP service.

Thirdly, the European service CNX will be suspended from the end of January 2009, which is being operated with 8 Panamax vessels operated by Hanjin Shipping. With the CNX suspension, CKYH’s weekly capacity to northern Europe will be reduced by around 9%.