Costas Paris of The Wall Street Journal reports that a new alliance between two of the world’s biggest shipping lines aims to cut docking costs and improve on-time performance. Paris writes:
Two of the world’s biggest shipping companies have a new plan to reduce cargo delivery delays. The answer, they say, is to use bigger ships and cut the number of port calls each ship makes.
Shippers have been plagued by vessel diversions from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal since late last year after a series of attacks on commercial vessels by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The longer routes around South Africa have added at least two weeks of sailing time and pushed freight rates higher.
Gemini—a new alliance between Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd that is set to become operational in February—aims to improve on-time performance. The move comes as shipping companies brace for a decline in freight rates and prepare to compete more fiercely for business. […]
Gemini is expected to come under scrutiny by global regulators, such as the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission, which will monitor the partnership for price fixing or other anticompetitive practices.
The commission’s chairman, Daniel Maffei, said he has asked his staff “to engage in immediate and ongoing rigorous monitoring of the Gemini Cooperation Agreement to ensure that it doesn’t illegally impact U.S. importers, exporters, covered service providers, and consumers.”
Read more here.
