New / upgraded ocean services

The Grand Alliance launches a new European service; Maersk enhances its WestMed service, and signs a vessel sharing agreement with MISC.(4/15/2008)
The Grand Alliance has announced the implementation of a new EU5 service, and updates to its dedicated Far East service (EU3 and EU4).
The newly established EU5, together with service improvements in EU3 and EU4, will enhance schedule reliability.
Eight 5,500 TEU vessels will be deployed on the weekly EU5 service, calling at Amsterdam > Hamburg > Southampton > Singapore > Shanghai > Ningbo > Xiamen > Singapore.
When the EU5 service commences (in week 16 westbound and week 20 eastbound), 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 members are Hapag-Lloyd (Germany), MISC Berhad (Malaysia), NYK (Japan) and OOCL (Hong Kong).
Maersk Line has introduced an improved WestMed service between the US East Coast and the Mediterranean.
The schedule of the new WestMed service will include a call at Leghorn, thus offering a direct and reliable service from the Italian ports of Gioia Tauro, Genoa, and Leghorn to the US East Coast and Gulf as well as providing a competitive eastbound product from the US and into the Mediterranean.
The new port rotation will be: Gioia Tauro (Italy) > Leghorn (Italy) > Genoa (Italy) > Algeciras (Spain) > Newark (US) > Charleston (US) > Houston (US) > Algeciras (Spain) > and Gioia Tauro (Italy).
Maersk will serve Valencia via Algeciras with a connection to the WestMed and MECL2 services, thus providing two weekly services to Newark and one weekly service to Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, and Houston.
The first vessel of the new schedule will depart Gioia Tauro on April 27th. The last vessel to call Valencia directly will be the SL Commitment (voyage 0807) with estimated departure on 7 May 2008.

Maersk has also entered a Vessel Sharing Agreement (VSA) with MISC Berhad in the South East

Asia - New Zealand trade, effective June 9th.
The service will deploy four 4,100 TEU vessels – three operated by Maersk Line and one by MISC Berhad.
The service remains unchanged to Maersk Line’s current product, i.e. a fixed weekly service calling at Tanjung Pelepas (Malaysia) > Singapore > Brisbane (Australia) > Auckland (New Zealand) > Port Chalmers (New Zealand) > Tanjung Pelepas (Malaysia).