The G6 Alliance has confirmed that its new service linking central and northern Asia to the US east coast will employ post-panamax vessels to take advantage of the canal’s new locks.
The G6, which comprises APL, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, MOL, NYK, and OOCL, will launch anew its new NYX service later this year, although it did not give a date for the launch.
It will have to be after June 26, however, when the Panama Canal’s expanded locks are official opened. The Panama Canal Authority announced this week that it was taking reservations for transits from July 27, with the first granted to Nippon Yusen Kaisha’s 78,874 cu m liquefied petroleum gas carrier Linden Pride.
“The new service via Panama will deploy neo-panamax ships of around 10,000 teu,” a spokesperson from alliance member APL told Lloyd’s List.
The new service will call at Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Manzanillo, New York, Norfolk, Savannah, Manzanillo, Busan and Qingdao.
As Lloyd’s List reported Thursday, the service is part of a shake-up of the G6’s transpacific services.
The announcement comes in the week that the alliance discovered it is to lose another member next year, when OOCL joins the proposed Ocean Alliance with CMA CGM, Evergreen and Cosco Container Line. APL will also leave the alliance when its sale to CMA CGM is complete