THE Alliance forced to cancel 19 Transpacific sailings
Source
American Shipper
Post Date
02/01/2021
Hapag-Lloyd has informed customers that 19 Asia - North America sailings of THE Alliance will not be performed in weeks 5 to 8. Three Transpacific South West services will even have no sailing in two consecutive weeks. The cancellations are part of a comprehensive schedule recovery plan to get vessels back to their inted positions. Vessels, port infrastructure and inland logistics services supporting Transpacific cargo movements have been stretched beyond capacity for several months due to very high cargo demand
Ships are facing increasing waiting times, which often already exceed one week for vessels calling at Los Angeles and Long Beach. The situation at both Californian ports is even worsening as the greater Los Angeles metro region is the epicenter of a COVID-19 surge with hundreds of dockworkers catching the virus.
In the past years, THE Alliance members would have reacted to port congestion by adding recovery vessels. Extra ships are currently however not available as the container fleet is already fully deployed and stretched beyond its capacity. Hapag-Lloyds announcement comes only a few days after Alphaliners report on more liner service disruption due to the shortage of ships (especially VLCS - see last weekĄ¯s newsletter). Of note, THE Alliance members (Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, ONE and Yang Ming) will blank in February also one Far East - North Europe and three Asia - Med sailings. The skipped sailings are planned in the week after Chinese New Year (12 February), but are said to be related to vessel delays.
