The UK’s largest container terminal at Felixstowe has received the first call of Evergreen’s China European Shuttle (CES service). Previously, the CES service did not have a UK call, but from May the UK port was added, while a number of other ports were dropped. With the new service now calling at Felixstowe, the Taiwanese shipping company has fulfilled its promise made last year to transfer its services from Thamesport to Felixstowe, both of which are owned by Hutchinson Group.
The promise to switch UK ports was made before Evergreen became a full member of the CKYHE Alliance, which is made up of Cosco, K Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin. The CKYHE alliance became effective from 1 March and operates six Asia-North Europe strings, of which five now call at Felixstowe.
The first vessel on the CES service to call at Felixstowe was the 98,882grt Ever Laden, built in 2012. With a capacity of 8,452TEU, the Evergreen ‘L’ series are some of the smallest capacity vessels deployed on Asia-Europe services. The other vessels on the service are Ever Lively, Ever Legion, Ever Lawful, Ever Lucent (8,452TEU); Hanjin Amsterdam (5,608TEU), Hanjin Yantian (7,455TEU); YM Unanimity, YM Ubiquity (8,200TEU); and COSCO Beijing (9,469TEU), calling at Taipei, Ningbo, Shanghai, Colombo, Suez Canal, Felixstowe, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Le Havre, Suez Canal, Colombo, Taipei, with a turnaround of 70 days.There is mounting speculation in the industry that the China Shipping Container Line (CSCL) and United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) may also join the CKYHE Alliance. AM
