South Korea's Hanjin Shipping is combining its Far East-US loop with a Far East-Mediterranean loop to boost capacity by 15 per cent on the Far East-Mediterranean trade.

As a result, the weekly capacity of the container ships deployed on the new service will be raised from 3,850 TEU to 4,380 TEU from this month, reports AXS-Alphaliner News. From December this weekly capacity will be raised to nine ships of 5,500 TEU and three ships ranging in capacity from 4,500- to 4,800-TEU.

It said that this new Mediterranean Asia America Pendulum service (MAP) had been created through combining the existing China Mediterranean Express (CMX) service with the Hanjin's Far East-US, Pacific Southwest service (PAS) in a bid to enhance service reliability.

The new MAP service will deploy 12 containerships instead of the 13 currently working the two loops, with 10 of the vessels being provided by Hanjin. One of the three 4,800-TEU vessels now sailing on the PAS service, the Punjab Senator, will leave Hanjin to be deployed on a service provided by MSC.

The CMX service, jointly operated by Hanjin, Yang Ming and "K" Line, and UASC as a slot purchaser, currently uses 3,850-TEU vessels, while the PAS service mainly uses 5,175-TEU ships. The report said that the additional capacity being added to the Asia-Mediterranean trade comes at the expense of the Far East-US trade.

The port rotation for the MAP service is: Port Said, Naples, La Spezia, Barcelona, Port Kelang, Singapore, Hong Kong, Yantian, Osaka, Tokyo, Long Beach, Oakland, Tokyo, Osaka, Busan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Singapore and Port Said.

Aside from the CMX, Hanjin Shipping also offers three other Asia-Mediterranean loops, namely the MEX, the GIX and the AMS.