Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd on Wednesday unveiled a new operational partnership called \u201cGemini Cooperation\u201d that will begin early next year and revolve around a global \u201chub-and-spoke\u201d network of owned or controlled terminals in key locations.<\/p>\n
Hapag-Lloyd will exit THE Alliance and link up with Maersk in February 2025 after the dissolution of the Maersk-Mediterranean Shipping Co. 2M Alliance. The Gemini Cooperation will operate a fleet of 290 vessels with an overall capacity of 3.4 million TEUs serving the major global trade lanes.<\/p>\n
The cornerstone of the new partnership will be the hub-and-spoke network the carriers believe will enable them to achieve schedule reliability above 90%, a level that has not been achieved in years and would differentiate Gemini from other alliances.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a realistic target,\u201d Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen told reporters during a press briefing. \u201cWhen you have an efficient network at scale you can have a hub and spoke model, and to have control over the hubs and terminals is absolutely critical.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gemini network will be structured around 12 terminal hubs owned or controlled by Maersk or Hapag-Lloyd in Asia, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, North Europe, and North and South America. It will cover seven global trades and offer 26 mainline services, with 32 dedicated regional shuttle services to and from the key hubs to ensure connections to many major ports.<\/p>\n
The carriers will be part of the Gemini partnership for three years, after which a 12-month notice period will be required should either wish to withdraw. Maersk will provide 60% of the capacity and Hapag-Lloyd 40%, but Habben Jansen noted that both carriers would continue to operate other services outside the Gemini network using capacity not allocated to the new partnership.<\/p>\n
Maersk is the world\u2019s second-largest container shipping line by capacity with just over 4 million TEUs; Hapag-Lloyd is sixth at 1.8 million TEUs.<\/p>\n
Streamlined port calls<\/p>\n
Habben Jansen said he was confident the 90% on-time reliability would be achievable as the network would be more reliable and interconnected than traditional alliance setups, something the partners expect would improve the ability of services to cope with external disruptions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will reach this [reliability] through a combination of streamlined port calls, controlled hubs and dedicated shuttle services,\u201d he said. \u201cAll loops will have two to three main port calls per region so the risks of delays will be significantly less, and by controlling the hub terminals we can also control priority and waiting times. The shuttles will operate with a high frequency from hub terminals to final destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gemini will release its preliminary ocean schedules in the third quarter, with the full operating schedules to be available in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Maersk said in a statement it would continue to work with its 2M partner MSC between now and the end of the 2M agreement in January 2025, \u201cfollowed by a smooth transition to the new Gemini network.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pleased to enter this cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd, which is the ideal ocean partner on our strategic journey,\u201d Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said in a statement Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy entering this cooperation, we will be offering our customers a flexible ocean network that will be raising the bar for reliability in the industry,\u201d Clerc added. \u201cThis will strengthen our integrated logistics offering and meet our customers\u2019 needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Habben Jansen emphasised that the cooperation with Maersk would not result in any change to the individual strategies deployed by the two carriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we don\u2019t have the same strategy \u2014 we are more a pure ocean player and they have an end-to-end focus \u2014 we have a shared goal around quality and sustainability that are two important parts of the cooperation we are setting up,\u201d he told reporters, comparing the Gemini partnership to cooperation seen in the airline industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot all cooperations need to stop in five or 10 years,\u201d Habben Jansen noted. \u201cLook at the cooperation between Lufthansa and United, airlines that have been working together for decades. I do not see why something like that could not happen in shipping.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alliance reorientation<\/p>\n
Hapag-Lloyd has been part of THE Alliance since 2017 along with Ocean Network Express (ONE), Yang Ming and HMM; its exit will withdraw 25% of the alliance\u2019s capacity. While Hapag-Lloyd had planned to remain a member of THE Alliance until 2030, Habben Jansen said the partnership with Maersk better served its goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a decision against THE Alliance, which has been a long-standing, trusted and successful partnership for us,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a next step to build something new that we believe will enable us to generate even more value for our customers by pairing our Hapag-Lloyd customer service with much higher operational quality in a robust and resilient network.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Habben Jansen noted that without Hapag-Lloyd, one of THE Alliance\u2019s largest members, the three remaining carriers would need to \u201creorient themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a view shared by Lars Jensen, CEO of Vespucci Maritime and a Journal of Commerce analyst.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis leaves ONE, Yang Ming and HMM in a very vulnerable position, unable to field a network matching those of Ocean Alliance, MSC and Gemini,\u201d Jensen wrote in a LinkedIn post. \u201cThe pressure is then on these three carriers to either lure a new partner out from Ocean Alliance or re-invent a new service concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Knowler, G. (2024, January 17). Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd Launch New \u201cgemini cooperation\u201d partnership<\/i>. Journal of Commerce. https:\/\/www.joc.com\/article\/maersk-hapag-lloyd-launch-new-gemini-cooperation-partnership_20240117.html<\/p>\n Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd on Wednesday unveiled a new operational partnership called \u201cGemini Cooperation\u201d that will begin early next year and revolve around a global \u201chub-and-spoke\u201d network of owned or controlled terminals in key locations. Hapag-Lloyd will exit THE Alliance and link up with Maersk in February 2025 after the dissolution of the Maersk-Mediterranean Shipping Co. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[88,84],"class_list":["post-2865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-container-liners","tag-maritime"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2866,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions\/2866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}