Grand Alliance starts new European service

The Grand Alliance announced an implementation of a new EU5 Service with updates to its dedicated Far East service. The changes reflect the company’s positive response to servicing the needs of customers as they react to growth in the Chinese mainland market.

The newly established EU5, together with service improvements in EU3 and EU4, will enhance schedule reliability and help to better meet customers’ needs in the fast-growing market. Eight vessels with an approximate capacity of 5,500 TEU will be deployed in EU5.

The first sailings of the EU5 service are scheduled for week 16 westbound and week 20 eastbound. The service will operate on a weekly basis with the following itinerary: Amsterdam - Hamburg - Southampton - Singapore - Shanghai - Ningbo - Xiamen - Singapore.

When the EU5 service commences, the EU3 service will omit Xiamen, and the EU4 service will omit Ningbo. Both calls have been transferred to the EU5 service.

The Grand Alliance, formed in 1998, is the leading integrated consortium in global container shipping. Its members include Hapag-Lloyd (Germany), MISC Berhad (Malaysia), NYK (Japan) and OOCL (Hong Kong).<Korea Shipping Gazette>