Evergreen formally joins CKYH on Asia-Europe trades
20 February 2014EVERGREEN Line has formally joined the CKYH alliance on the Asia-Europe trades after close co-operation between the five carriers for the past two years.
The CKYHE carriers have reported forming the alliance to the European Commission and completed the self-assessment process.
According to Alphaliner data, CKYH’s market share on the Asia-Europe trade reaches 23%, whereas Evergreen’s is around 6%, suggesting the new alliance’s share is well within the European Union’s block exemption for consortia.
The new alliance will begin operations in mid-April with six joint services between Asia and northern Europe and four loops for the Asia-Mediterranean route per week.
In the CKYHE alliance, Evergreen will contribute 17 vessels, Coscon will contribute 15 ships, Hanjin 13, Yang Ming nine and K Line eight ships.
Members of the alliance believe the expansion will enable them reduce calling ports and achieve rationalisation of operations, while succeding in shortening transit time.
Evergreen and CKYH originally have 79 calling ports on Asia-northern Europe routes in their summer plans, but the number will be reduced to 63 this year.
The expanded alliance will maintain the NE2, NE3, NE6 and CES services, form two new services named Central Express and South Express, and drop the NE7 and CEM loops.
Thanks to that it is expected transit time from Shanghai to Europe can be reduced to 26 days in the new services.