With the peaks and troughs of the Asia/North Europe trade more pronounced than ever in recent weeks, lines within the major alliances are naturally looking at ways to ensure more operational stability in their market and service network structures.

Heading up those efforts are the G6 Alliance lines, APL, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, MOL, NYK, OOCL, all of which are extending their mainline Asia/Europe network to include calls in the Baltic region. The lines will this month include new calls at Gdansk and Gothenburg on their jointly-operated Asia/Europe Loop 7 service from the second week of August.

With the inclusion of the new direct call at Gdansk, the lines will add an extra vessel to the service to accommodate the new call, thereby bringing the service deployment up to 12 vessels. Transit times between some ports will also go up by between 7 and 10 days to facilitate the inclusion of Gdansk in the mainhaul service schedule.

The first Gdansk call is scheduled for August 10 by the 13,169 TEU Hong Kong Express, and the new Loop 7 port rotation will then be Qingdao, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yantian, Singapore, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Gdansk, Southampton, Singapore, Yantian and Qingdao.

Westbound transit time from Qingdao to Gdansk will be 40 days and Singapore to Gdansk in 29 days. Eastbound transit times will include Gdansk to Yantian in 36 days, and to Qingdao in 40 days.

The new Gdansk call will be followed towards the end of August by another new call in the Baltic region, this time at Gothenburg on the jointly-operated Loop 7 service, together with a new eastbound call at Antwerp on the way back to Asia. Under the latest service extension, Loop 7 will then offer direct coverage of Qingdao, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yantian, Singapore, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Gdansk, Gothenburg, Antwerp, Southampton, Singapore, Yantian and Qingdao.

First call at Gothenburg is scheduled to be made on August 27, and at Antwerp on August 30 by the 13,154 TEU Hyundai Drive.

In addition to these two extra ports on the G6 service network, G6 member line Hapag-Lloyd is picking up on the transhipment potential of the Baltic market link up with Asia/Europe mainhaul port calls at Gothenburg on Loop 7.

Separately, CKYHE Alliance member line COSCO has recently expanded its Baltic feeder network with two new services, the Poland/Lithuania Express (PLX1), and the Sweden/Netherland Express (SNX1) service. Importantly, both services make direct calls at Hamburg, the CKYHE mainline Asia/Europe port. Both services operate through slot allocations for COSCO from the individual line operators.

The PLX1 covers Hamburg, Gdynia, Klaipeda, Hamburg, and through slots on the existing Eimskip service deploying the 1,036 TEU Nordic Hamburg. The SNX1 covers Rotterdam, Oslo, Gothenburg, Rotterdam operated by Unifeeder and deploying the 1,025 TEU Condor.

By Paul Richardson

Sea Freight Correspondent | London