GA and nwa offer joint Black Sea service

Member lines of the Grand Alliance (GA) and The New World Alliance (TNWA) announced a jointly operated service from Asia to the Black Sea, starting mid-June, 2008.

The Grand Alliance and TNWA carriers began cooperating this past February with a slot exchange on their respective fortnightly services to the Black Sea. The new joint service now provides shippers a weekly frequency with common ports.

Eight vessels are deployed on the service. Grand Alliance member lines operate five vessels. TNWA members operate three vessels. Capacity for these eight ships is about 5,000 TEU.

Port rotation for the Black Sea service is: Shanghai, Ningbo, Shekou, Singapore, Suez, Istanbul, Constanza, Odessa, Constanza, Istanbul, Damietta, Suez, Jeddah, Singapore, Shanghai.

The Grand Alliance, formed in 1998, consists of Hapag-Lloyd (Germany), MISC Berhad (Malaysia), NYK (Japan) and OOCL (Hong Kong).<Korea Shipping Gazette>