Maersk, G6 Alliance to suspend services during Chinese holiday
The G6 Alliance and Maersk will suspend a number of Asia-Europe services during China’s national Golden week holidays in October, although one analyst claimed bearish demand could also be a factor in the service reductions, the Journal of Commerce reported.
“With demand so weak in Asia-Europe, lines are using this as an excuse to start their winter service program early,” the analyst added.
Four sailings from Asia will be suspended by the G6 Alliance on the Asia-Europe lane from October 3-13.
Maersk Line will drop five Asia-Europe sailings from October 1-14. The services affected are its AE5, AE6, AE7 and AE9 loops.
“We will be scaling back our network to manage decreased demand caused by low production output during National Day Golden Week in People’s Republic of China,” the carrier said.
“In order to ensure that we still cater for customer requirements, we will endeavour to cover requirements by shifting volumes to other services in our network that cover similar geographies.”