CKYH Alliance terminating Asia/U.S. East Coast service

The CKYH Alliance of COSCO Container Lines, K Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin Shipping is about to end one of its all-water Asia/U.S. East Coast services, AWE-5 service, having only restarted the loop in May.

   The last voyage that will reach U.S. ports will be made by the Hanjin Piraeus departing Xiamen on Oct. 1. The AWE-5 in recent times has been operating at reduced capacity with some skipped sailings. The current setup deploys seven ships averaging 4,130 TEUs on a 56-day round voyage rotation of Xiamen; Yantian; Ningbo; Shanghai; Busan; Savannah, Ga.; Norfolk, Va.; Charleston, S.C.; Busan; and back to Xiamen.

   The service was previously suspended at the end of 2007 along with a series of other winter season capacity reductions.

   The CKYH Alliance has four remaining Asia/U.S. East Coast via Panama Canal strings that combined provide some 16,100 TEUs in weekly one-way capacity, according to ComPairData (www.compairdata.com), American Shipper's online database of deep-sea liner services.