The 2M Alliance partners Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and ZIM today announced the agreement to extend their strategic cooperation to cover select 2M services also on the Asia - US West Coast and Asia - Mediterranean trade lanes.
Between Asia and the US West Coast, the TP9 service will be operated as a VSA string where ZIM will operate four (4) vessels and 2M will operate three (3) vessels. Part of the ZIM slots on the TP9 will be swapped for access to slots on the fully 2M operated TP8 service. There will be no schedule changes to the TP8 and TP9 services.
Between Asia and the Mediterranean, ZIM gets access to 2M slots on the AE12 and AE15 services. There will be no changes to the AE12 and AE15 schedules, which were announced in December 2018 as part of an network upgrade to further improve Maersk schedule reliability between Asia and Europe/Mediterranean.
“Having successfully implemented our strategic cooperation, we are very pleased to expand the partnership with ZIM into additional geographies. This agreement delivers mutual benefits to both parties, for Maersk it provides operational efficiencies that will enable our continued drive to deliver competitive and reliable products for our customers in the world’s most comprehensive East-West network,” says Søren Toft, Chief Operating Officer, A.P. Moller - Maersk.
The service changes are expected to begin in March 2019, subject to regulatory approval.