Grand Alliance moves to Amsterdam amid Rotterdam delays

Grand Alliance moves to Amsterdam amid Rotterdam delays

   Grand Alliance member lines Hapag-Lloyd, CP Ships, NYK and OOCL have switched calls on two transatlantic services to Amsterdam’s Ceres Paragon terminal to avoid delays caused by recent system failures at Rotterdam’s ECT Delta terminal.

   The weekly North Atlantic Express (ATX) and Pacific Atlantic Express (PAX) now call at Amsterdam instead of Rotterdam.

   “The Grand Alliance will discuss the possibility of continuing to serve the Ceres Paragon terminal while keeping an eye on Rotterdam’s future developments,” said NYK, which owns 50 percent of the Amsterdam terminal.

   The Ceres Paragon terminal has an innovative “indented” berth design that allows a container ship to be worked simultaneously on two sides, but was hardly utilized by carriers in the first years after its opening in 2001. The Grand Alliance first started regular calls at the terminal in August 2005 and calls there on two Asia/Europe services, EU1 and EU2.

   The ATX service uses four ships of 2,750 TEUs and has a temporarily revised port rotation of: Amsterdam; Hamburg, Le Havre, Southampton, New York, Norfolk, Charleston and back to Amsterdam.

   The PAX service uses 13 ships of about 4,700 TEUs and has a revised rotation of: Antwerp; Thamesport; Bremerhaven; Amsterdam; Halifax, Nova Scotia; New York; Norfolk, Va.; Savannah, Ga.; Manzanillo, Panama; Long Beach, Calif.; Oakland, Calif.; Yokohama; Kobe; Kaohsiung; Yantian; Hong Kong; Kobe; Nagoya; Tokyo; Seattle Wash.; Oakland; Long Beach; Manzanillo, Panama; Savannah; Norfolk; New York; Halifax; and back to Antwerp.

   Atlantic Container Line takes slots on both services between Europe and North America.