Month: <span>April 2026</span>

Mediterranean Shipping Co. is reworking its trans-Pacific network starting next month to offer more reliable, direct China services into US Northeast and Southeast ports, while providing coastwide direct service from Southeast Asia.

MSC said in a Thursday customer advisory that it is changing some port calls on its three main East Coast services to “enhance service reliability and schedule stability.” The new networks consolidate some China calls and will change some calls to Florida ports.

MSC’s Empire Service will drop a Qingdao call, with the service now only calling Shanghai, Ningbo and Busan on the front haul. Empire’s US rotation will drop the ports of Jacksonville and Miami in favor of calls to Norfolk and Port Everglades on the backhaul.

The service’s new rotation will commence with the scheduled May 27 departure of the 6,178-TEU MSC Leo VI from Shanghai. The carrier said Empire would be “less exposed to port congestion risks” due to the rotation change.

Qingdao will be added to MSC’s Amberjack service into the US Southeast. However, MSC will no longer provide direct service from Yantian and Xiamen but instead focus the service on northeast Asia ports. The service will also replace a call to Norfolk with a call to Jacksonville.

MSC said the Amberjack changes would improve transit times and network stability. The new rotation goes into effect with the service’s estimated May 20 departure from Qingdao.

MSC also said it would rework its Emerald service from Southeast Asia to drop a call to Taiwan’s Kaohsiung in favor of Xiamen, providing a direct service from that port into the largest US East Coast ports. The new rotation is expected to take effect with the May 18 departure from Singapore of the 7,000-TEU Zim Topaz.

Source: JOC

CMA CGM will add the Port of Jacksonville to its trans-Pacific express service, adding to the port’s roster of direct Asia services and tapping the recent modernization of Jaxport’s main marine terminal.

The Jacksonville Port Authority said in a statement Wednesday the Ocean Alliance will include the port on its Chesapeake Bay Express (CBX) service rotation as of this June. The CBX, operated exclusively by CMA CGM, calls Vietnam, China and South Korea before its eastbound rotation that includes US calls at Norfolk, Charleston and Savannah before Jacksonville.

The CBX had previously called Miami, which is no longer on its rotation, according to its schedule. Ocean Alliance had previously been planning to add Jacksonville to one of its Gulf Coast services but instead settled on including it on the CBX. Jaxport will see the first CBX call with the June 27 expected arrival of the 7,327-TEU CMA CGM Passion.

Jaxport Chief Executive Eric Green said in the statement the introduction of the CBX “expands routing flexibility between the Southeast United States and key Asian markets.” Jaxport added that its position on the CBX rotation will mean “opportunities for equipment repositioning and expedited transit for US export cargoes.”

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC

Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) is reducing the number of West Coast port calls it makes on one of its trans-Pacific services and changing its Asian port rotations in a bid to improve schedule reliability and service consistency.

MSC said in a customer advisory late last week that its Orient service from China would no longer call Oakland, effective as of the April 30 departure of the 8,827-TEU MSC Naomi from Qingdao.

MSC said it made the change so “the service will be less exposed to port congestion risks, allowing for improved schedule reliability and more consistent on-time arrivals.”

Although not in MSC’s advisory, the Orient service, whose only West Coast call will be the carrier’s Long Beach terminal, has also effectively dropped Portland, Oregon, as a regular call, even though the port was listed on the rotation in earlier Orient service brochures.

MSC, which has offered intermittent service to Portland since the pandemic, last called Portland with a post-Panamax container ship in May 2025, according to Sea-web, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce.

The carrier, meanwhile, is adding Vietnam’s Haiphong as a regular call to its Sentosa service from Southeast Asia to Long Beach and Oakland. The new call from Haiphong, MSC’s first direct service from that port into Long Beach, will be in effect as of the April 16 departure from Haiphong of the 16,616-TEU MSC Lorenza.

MSC said the change “will offer improved transit times compared to the previous routing, while optimizing port coverage within a more stable network structure.”

Dropping Haiphong on Chinook service

However, MSC will be dropping Haiphong as a call on its Chinook service into the Pacific Northwest, leaving Vietnam’s Vung Tau, major Chinese ports, and South Korea’s Busan on the service. The new Chinook rotation will be in effect as of the April 13 departure of the 10,114-TEU Express Athens from Vung Tau.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC