THE Alliance on Wednesday said it was postponing the planned restart of a service between Asia and the US East Coast due to the ongoing threats against vessels transiting the Red Sea. The decision underscores that ship diversions around Africa\u2019s Cape of Good Hope will likely last through at least the first half of 2024, if not longer.<\/p>\n
Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express (ONE) said in a statement that THE Alliance\u2019s East Coast 4 (EC4) service from Asia will not restart as previously announced. The service was suspended last year due to plummeting freight rates.<\/p>\n
The first voyage on the restarted EC4 from Taiwan\u2019s Kaohsiung port was scheduled for mid-April on the 14,080-TEU YM Warmth, which was expected to arrive at the Port of Norfolk on May 25. The EC4 service spans ports in Taiwan, southern China, Vietnam and Singapore, with US calls at Norfolk, Savannah, Charleston and New Jersey.<\/p>\n
The carriers said the EC4, which transited the Suez Canal on its westbound voyage leg, will be postponed \u201cuntil the situation in the Red Sea has stabilized.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 13 vessels in the EC4 service will be deployed to THE Alliance\u2019s three other Asia-US East Coast services, which will each add other Asian and US port calls in the absence of the EC4 service.<\/p>\n
Increased naval presence<\/p>\n
Just since March 1, there have been 11 attacks against commercial ships transiting the Red Sea in the vicinity of Yemen, according to the Royal Navy\u2019s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. Houthi militants operating in Yemen have been launching regular attacks on vessels since last November, forcing ships to divert around southern Africa.<\/p>\n
The attacks come despite an increase in Western naval presence in the Red Sea aimed at thwarting the Houthis. The European Union announced a combined naval operation called \u201cAspides\u201d that began in mid-February, joining the US Navy-led Operation Prosperity Garden.<\/p>\n
Even with the increased naval presence, Houthi militants have successfully sunk two ships in that period, the general cargo ship Rubymar and the bulk carrier True Confidence, the latter resulting in the deaths of three seafarers on March 7. In response, international seafarers\u2019 unions designated the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden as \u201cwarlike\u201d areas and called on all carriers to avoid transits there.<\/p>\n
Along with THE Alliance, Maersk said in a March 22 customer advisory that it has no plans to resume Suez Canal transits because \u201cthe risk level in the region remains elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Angell, M. (2024a, April 3). Red Sea crisis prompts the alliance to delay restart of Asia-USEC service<\/i>. Journal of Commerce. https:\/\/www.joc.com\/article\/red-sea-crisis-prompts-alliance-delay-restart-asia-usec-service_20240403.html<\/p>\n THE Alliance on Wednesday said it was postponing the planned restart of a service between Asia and the US East Coast due to the ongoing threats against vessels transiting the Red Sea. The decision underscores that ship diversions around Africa\u2019s Cape of Good Hope will likely last through at least the first half of 2024, …<\/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-2962","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\/2962","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=2962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2963,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2962\/revisions\/2963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}