Grand Alliance to add ninth ship to EU2 service

Grand Alliance (GA) shipping lines plan to add a ninth vessel to their current eight-ship EU2 service, as part of a restructuring of the Asia-North Europe run from 2007. The extra vessel on the EU2 will be used to improve schedule reliability, said a statement from the Grand Alliance, a consortium consisting of Hapag-Lloyd, MISC, NYK, and OOCL. Following the change, the alliance said it also intends to alter additional services similarly. The current EU2 rotation is: Kaohsiung, Shekou, Yantian, Hong Kong, Singapore, LeHavre, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Southampton, Gioia Tauro, Jeddah, Jebel Ali, Singapore and Kaohsiung.