By Dale Crisp
The A3 consortium of ANL, COSCO and OOCL has moved quickly to protect what it regards as the premium product in the North & East Asia-Australia market by making adjustments to two of its three weekly loops.
Coincidentally (J) announcing the changes the same day the new HMM/EMC/APL service broke cover, A3 members said the upgraded product would provide "more competitive service in both directions and comprehensive coverage", from August.
While the A3N (northern) loop will remain unchanged, there will be some port calls shuffled between A3C (central) and A3S (southern) strings and extra calls added.
A3C – effective from the voyage expected to arrive Shanghai 9 August the port rotation will include additional northbound calls for a new rotation of Shanghai, Ningbo, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Kaohsiung, Xiamen, Ningbo, Shanghai.
A3S – effective from the voyage due to arrive Xiamen 10 August the new rotation will be
Xiamen, Shekou, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Xiamen.
With the advent of a new, competing service it is unclear whether A3 will proceed with an earlier-mooted plan to upsize vessels on the A3C loop.
The full text of the announcements from carriers can be accessed via the following links.
https://www.anl.com.au/news/721/a3-service-upgrade
http://www.oocl.com/eng/aboutoocl/corporatemessages/2018/Pages/15jun18-2.aspx