By Mike Wackett

(The Loadstar) – “Alliances are only as stable as their member carriers,” was maritime guide Drewry’s first touch upon plans to create a 3rd mega-grouping.

On Friday, Hanjin Shipping, Hapag-Lloyd, Okay Line, MOL, NYK and Yang Ming introduced an preliminary five-year “binding agreement” to kind THE Alliance on east-west trades in April 2017.

The six strains have been described by Drewry because the “orphans” of the not too long ago introduced Ocean Alliance grouping of CMA CGM, Cosco, Evergreen and OOCL. Currently members of the G6 and CKYHE alliances, they’ll function a mixed fleet of roughly 3.5m teu, an 18% share of world container capability.

Excluded from the deal was UASC, presently concerned in merger talks with Hapag-Lloyd, however finally anticipated to turn into a part of THE Alliance, and HMM, which is within the technique of restructuring its money owed, but in addition has ambitions to affix the grouping at a later stage.

Meanwhile, Drewry has recommended that the brand new, alliance could have “too many cooks”, in contrast with the 2M’s Maersk and MSC and the Ocean Alliance’s 4 carriers.

Indeed, a supply at one G6 service admitted to The Loadstar not too long ago that its decision-making course of involving six members was “time-consuming and tedious” – significantly when making an attempt to get a consensus on schedule adjustments.

And ought to UASC not merge with Hapag-Lloyd and HMM can be accepted into the fold, the workings of THE Alliance might probably turn into much more unwieldy.

Drewry suggests {that a} means to enhance the pace of communication and decision-making can be to kind a single impartial operational unit, just like the proposed London operational headquarters of the aborted P3 alliance. But it cautioned that may, equally, threat being knocked again by Chinese regulators involved about antitrust implications.

Nevertheless, based on Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen, the philosophy of the brand new alliance can be completely different and take a look at “every possible angle to work together” and “look beyond port to port” co-operation.

Following solutions that the transfer from 4 to 3 mega-alliances can be unhealthy information for shippers, Drewry identified that shippers ought to don’t have anything to concern, “as there will still be at least 12 competing carriers and sales organisations behind these operating alliances”.

It added: “While some uncertainty has been removed from the market it should be remembered that alliances are only as stable as their member carriers so they should not be seen as the silver bullet that will save the industry,” concluded Drewry.

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