Carriers within the NEAX and A1X/CA6 consortiums have announced a merge of their services.  There have been discussions regarding the merge of the NEAX and A1X/CA6 service for some time and it was confirmed last week that the merge into one service will take place in November 2019.

As a result of the above merge there will be a reduction in capacity  and an impact on first service calls to Melbourne.  The current structure of the A1X/CA6 and NEAX is currently as follows.

A1X/CA6 Service

Operators: HMM/Evergreen/APL

Rotation: Ningbo/Shanghai/Yantian/Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Ningbo

Capacity: 3700 TEU per week and 380 plugs (reefers under power)

NEAX Service

Operators: Evergreen/APL/Hapag-Lloyd/ONE/YML

Rotation: Yokohama/Osaka/Pusan/Qingdao/Shanghai/Ningbo/Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane/Yokohma

Capacity: 3700 TEU per week and 380 plugs

New Service after Merger

A1X/CA6 Service

Operators: HMM/Evergreen/Hapag-Lloyd/ONE/ANL (Replacing APL)

Rotation: Pusan/Qingdao/Ningbo/Shanghai/Yantian/Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Pusan

Capacity: 3700 TEU per week and 380 plugs

The merged service will commence Week 48 with the SC Mara ETA Pusan 25 November and ETA Sydney 16 December

The impact of the merge is as follows

• A total of 3700 TEU and 380 plugs will be removed from the China/Japan trade on a weekly basis.  This represents an approximate 10% reduction in the Far East trade;
• HMM/Evergreen/Hapag/ONE are all taking an approximate 40-50% reduction in their capacity both Southbound and Northbound;
• Northbound services now have only 2  direct services into Japan (A3N and Boomerang/Dragon service); and
• There is a reduction of 380 plugs per week on the Japan and Korea reefer trade. The impact may extend into the China trade as current reefer requirement takes up some of the China allocation.

With the early Chinese New Year (CNY) next year (29 January 2020) it is expected that import market will remain very tight right through December into January.

Our Australian customer service and sales team will be speaking to you over the coming week or so to get some forecasting from you and your last shipment dates ahead of Christmas.  Our customer service teams in China will also be speaking with your suppliers to get an understand over volume flows including last despatch dates prior to CNY.

Southbound Transit (days)

Northbound Transit (days)