Maersk Line has entered into a slot charter agreement to provide CMA CGM container space on the transatlantic trade.
The agreement covers 900 TEU on a weekly basis on Maersk's TA3 service from North Europe to/from Newark, Savannah and Miami.
"The transatlantic trade has suffered from surplus capacity and we expect this slot charter agreement will bring balance to the capacity in the trade," a company statement said.
As a result, CMA CGM will terminate the Liberty Bridge service operated in cooperation with the China Shipping Company, which uses four 2,500-TEU vessels, representing five per cent of the total capacity in the transatlantic trade.
Maersk's TA3 service will remain unchanged and all vessels will continue to be operated by Maersk Line.
The slot charter agreement will commence with the sailing of the Dirch Maersk, which is scheduled to depart Bremerhaven on April 17, a statement from the carrier said.
In a separate development, Maersk Line will redesign its current Oceania Service connecting Australia and New Zealand to the US east coast and South and Central America in May.
The new service will be offered under a vessel sharing agreement with Hamburg Sud.
The port rotation for the new Maersk Line service will be Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Port Chalmers (New Zealand), Tauranga (New Zealand), Auckland, Manzanillo (Panama), Cartagena (Colombia), Savannah, Philadelphia, Savannah, Balboa (Panama), and back to Auckland.
The restructured service will be complemented by a new weekly feeder service between Sydney and Melbourne to the main ports of New Zealand.
The new Southern Star Express service will also provide enhanced coverage of the New Zealand market by offering direct connections to all Maersk Lines services from Lyttleton, Wellington, Auckland, Port Chalmers, New Plymouth, Nelson and Timaru. The Southern Star Express service will replace Maersk's existing Trans Tasman service.
"The change of the Oceania Service is a direct result of the negative developments in our cost base, primarily caused by increasing fuel costs, combined with an unsustainable development in the supply and demand balance. The new service will bring balance to the present market conditions and allow us to better utilise our assets," a Maersk release added.
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