Sailing closer to target

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

LINER performance in last year’s review of the US South Atlantic/Gulf/Pacific trades was one of the worst recorded, with only three of the operations monitored managing to average under one day off schedule.

This was partly down to the chronic congestion suffered by the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach in the second half of 2004, which affected all the operations serving Pacific coast ports for the period under review. With the port situation largely resolved by longer working hours and other measures, it is no surprise that all these operations turned in much better results this year.

Two of them – the New World Alliance APX and the RTW of CSAV Norasia and Zim – were particularly impressive, occupying the top two positions for continuing operations in the schedule reliability table.
The APX did skip Los Angeles/Oakland calls on two occasions when vessels were being switched, and also missed Felixstowe once at New Year, but otherwise was very consistent and appears to have had few problems.

The RTW has been highly impressive in the past year or so, ever since an extra vessel was brought in and round-trip times extended, and it has been a credit to the lines. It should be noted that China Shipping Container Line (CSCL) was also a vessel-operating partner until early this year.

The two other pendulums, the Grand Alliance PAX and Evergreen NUE, still gave cause for concern, and despite frequent port-skipping - including Thamesport - and ad hoc changes to calling patterns in Europe, both lagged behind their nearest competitors.

Evergreen even skipped Los Angeles/Oakland calls on two occasions to make up time on the NUE, although part of the problem stems from the global containership shortage, which forced the removal of some of the fast ‘D-class’ vessels which were built for this service. They have now all been brought back, and the NUE should hopefully benefit.

There was also an overall improvement in end-to-end services to US South Atlantic and Gulf ports, with some very impressive results. Unfortunately, some of the better ones were for operations that have been amended in the recent trade reshuffle.

These include the CP Ships-operated Gulf loop 1, which was the most punctual individual operation in the trade, although there was no sailing one week in January due to routine vessel repairs.
The companion Gulf loop operated by CP Ships and the Grand Alliance was rather weak, while the SGX/SAX service (part of the ‘Butterfly’ operation) remained anchored to the bottom of the table. Presumably the replacement of this long-running twin-loop experiment should be of benefit to the overall result of the Grand Alliance/CP Ships grouping in the future.

The two other operations continuing to languish at the lower end of the table are the US South Atlantic/Gulf/Mexico loop of Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), and the TAS1/NTA run by Cosco, Hanjin, “K” Line and Yangming.

With this survey split into sectors, it is necessary to unravel the schedule reliability and transit time results for each. This is not an easy task, given the number of omitted calls at base ports and the number of loops operated by many carriers.

Starting with schedule reliability, the most straightforward result is for the South Atlantic sector, where the punctuality of the CSAV Norasia/Zim joint RTW operation at Charleston was good enough to give these lines an edge over the New World Alliance APX. Note, however, that this does not apply to Zim shipments on TAS1/NTA vessels, under its slot agreement with the CKYH lines.

This pair are also the two leading contenders for the US Pacific sector, and while the New World Alliance APX has the best average, it also missed out calls on two weeks. Even though flagged in advance, this means that shippers wanting a sailing on those particular weeks would have had a seven-day delay in both cases, and that puts the CSAV Norasia/Zim RTW in front.

One wrinkle here is that for operational reasons, it is Zim associate Gold Star Line that is the official vessel provider alongside CSAV Norasia in the RTW. Nevertheless, it has been considered that as part of the same group, Zim can be included as a Star Performer.

Another wrinkle is that CSCL was also a vessel operator on the RTW in the monitoring period, and thus has to share the awards, despite the fact that it now serves the South Atlantic on the new EAX service, which has yet to be monitored, and no longer has a direct service to the Pacific coast.

As for the US Gulf, the CP Ships Gulf loop 1 was the best individual operation to Houston, but the other loops in which CP Ships was involved were both much weaker. This means that Maersk Sealand (now Maersk Line) was able to slip into pole position.

Transit times from the UK are less problematic in that only actual sailings count. This means a double for the New World Alliance, with members APL, MOL and HMM fastest in both the South Atlantic and Pacific coast sectors.

The CP Ships Gulf loop 1 was a close second to the South Atlantic, and easily the fastest to Houston. While the SGX loop was somewhat slower, the overall result of the CP Ships/Grand Alliance partnership was still the speediest from the UK to the US Gulf, and the lines share the honours.

Again there is a complication, in that P&O Nedlloyd was a member of the Grand Alliance over the monitoring period, and has thus been listed as a Star Performer despite now having been absorbed within Maersk Line.