The two companies said on September 21 that they will begin the ‘Vessel Space’ sharing system under which a shipping company is allowed to put its containers on the vessel of another shipping company in the Asia-U.S. route from next month.
Under the recent agreement, as similar to a code-share agreement between air carriers, the two companies will exchange containers with a total volume of 150TEU (20-foot equivalent units).
HMM is to share the Hanjin Shipping’s All Water North Atlantic (AWN) service route operating through Taiwan, Shanghai, Busan, Panama and the U.S. East coast. Hanjin Shipping will share the Suez Express (SZX) route operated by HMM through Singapore, Colombo, Suez and the U.S. East coast.
The recent agreement on the sharing of vessel space marks the second occasion since launching a joint service network in 2007 connecting Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
“150 TEU vessel space to be shared between the two companies is not large, but we are anticipating effects of the win-win strategy from the sharing of our diverse service routes,” said sources from the two companies.