by Lloyd's List
10 September (Lloyd's List) - MAERSK and Hapag-Lloyd have become the latest carriers to announce contingency plans ahead of a potential reopening of the Red Sea, as the pair ready for the launch of their new alliance partnership, the Gemini Cooperation, from the start of next year.
The announcement by the two Gemini carriers came as part of an update covering finalised service maps and a revamped network of the partnership on east-west trades with less than three months until its initial launch.
The Gemini Cooperation will commence from January 2025, signalling Hapag-Lloyd’s departure from The Alliance — its vessel sharing agreement with Ocean Network Express, HMM and Yang Ming, and the dissolution of the 2M agreement between Maersk and the world’s largest ocean carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co.
Gemini’s new network comes as a dual offering to shippers, one that will be dependent on a resolution leading to safe passage through the Red Sea.
If carriers return to their more traditional Red Sea routing through the Suez Canal, Gemini’s network will consist of around 300 vessels, with a combined capacity of 3.4m teu, as part of 57 services, which will be made up of 27 mainline routes and 30 shuttles.
In the event that carriers continue to send services around southern Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, Gemini will increase the number of vessels under the partnership to 340 ships, which will see capacity swell to 3.7m teu, while services will increase to 59, with the addition of two mainline routes. The pair’s feeder offering would remain the same.
Gemini said it will announce which network it expects to implement from February as soon as next month.
When the Gemini Cooperation was announced in January of this year, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd said that the network would consist of around 290 vessels with a 3.4m teu capacity.
The move to present two routing options to the market follows a similar announcement from MSC, in a bid to reassure shippers of contingency plans in the event that the Red Sea crisis prolongs. MSC also announced a slot sharing agreement with the remaining The Alliance carriers on the Far East-Europe trade.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Hapag-Lloyd chief executive Rolf Habben Jansen said “reliability, connectivity and sustainability” were central to Gemini’s message to customers.
“We are pleased that we now can give our customers full transparency about how we will deliver a best-in-class ocean network so they can begin planning despite a highly dynamic situation,” he said.
Once fully implemented, Gemini said that its ambition was to ensure schedule reliability of more than 90% across its network.
“We are happy to reconfirm that our schedule reliability target remains unchanged irrespective of which network we will phase in,” added Maersk chief executive Vincent Clerc.
“We believe our collaboration will raise the bar for reliability to the benefit of our customers and set a new and very high standard in the industry.”
