The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) voted to allow the G6 Alliance to increase the frequency of vessel port calls on the U.S. East Coast.
The six members of the G6 Alliance filed with the FMC on February 1, 2013 a proposal seeking to expand their cooperation beyond the Asia-Europe trade to the Asia-North America East Coast trade.
With this new agreement, the G6 Alliance will deploy more than 50 ships in the trans-Pacific trade, calling at almost 30 ports in Asia, North America East Coast, Canada, Central America, Caribbean, Indian Subcontinent, Mediterranean, and the Middle East.
Commissioner William P. Doyle said in a statement: “In particular, the geographic scope of the agreement is between Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, Italy, Jamaica, Malaysia, Panama, People’s Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam—and the East Coast of the United States via the Panama and Suez canals, as well as ports and points served via such U.S. and foreign ports.”
The G6 Alliance was established in December 2011 and began operations in March 2012. It is a vessel-sharing agreement between the New World Alliance composed of APL, Hyundai, and MOL, and the Grand Alliance consisting of Hapag-Lloyd, NYK, and OOCL.
The new partnership is scheduled to begin in May 2013 with six coordinated service loops—the result of the merger and revision of several existing services separately offered by the two alliances. Three of the services will transit via the Suez Canal, while the remaining three will transit via the Panama Canal.
The commission will also establish a monitoring program to detect capacity coordination among carriers and agreements operating in the market.
