THE Alliance will become the Premier Alliance from next February, with Ocean Network Express (ONE), HMM and Yang Ming Marine Transportation as partners, and the world’s largest containerline helping plug gaps on Asia-Europe tradelanes. 

From next year there is set to be the biggest overhaul in liner alliances in a decade, with Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) ditching Maersk in the 2M vessel sharing agreement to largely go it alone, and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd subsequently exiting THE Alliance to join the Danish carrier in what will be called the Gemini Cooperation. The liner switches had left the remaining members of the all-Asian THE Alliance as the smallest grouping on the main east-west trades. 

Today, the three Asian carriers reaffirmed they will remain partners for at least another five years through to the end of the decade, while unveiling a new branding, Premier Alliance, 

“Collectively this new tripartite alliance will offer strong, reliable and highly dependable end-to-end direct port container services to its customers on both the transpacific and Asia-Europe trades,” Jeremy Nixon, CEO of ONE, shared his thoughts on this new collaboration and ONE’s business outlook going forward.

More headline-grabbing, however, is the news that the three carriers have negotiated a slot exchange deal with MSC on the Asia-Europe trades on nine services, helping plug the gap in size. 

In the wake of Hapag-Lloyd’s departure from THE Alliance, the Asian trio had been canvassing potential new partners. 

A senior executive at Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines admitted recently that his company had been approached to join a shipping alliance, without revealing which grouping had made the approach. 

From February next year, the main east-west trades will see MSC largely operating solo, the Premier Alliance brand commence, the Gemini Cooperation start, while existing liner group Ocean Alliance, made up of CMA CGM, COSCO, Evergreen and OOCL, has agreed to continue their vessel-sharing agreement until the end of March 2032.