Following the decision by Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk to exit their current alliances and form a new partnership, the Gemini Cooperation, questions arose regarding the plans of the remaining members of THE Alliance and MSC.
THE Alliance members HMM, Ocean Network Express (ONE), and Yang Ming have announced the continuation of their cooperation under a new name, the Premier Alliance. This partnership will be effective from February 2024 to February 2025.
The Premier Alliance will cover major East-West trade routes, including Asia–North America West Coast, Asia–North America East Coast, Asia–Mediterranean, Asia–North Europe, and Asia–Middle East services.
Kyung Bae Kim, CEO of HMM, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, “It is very pleased to continue alliance cooperation with ONE and Yang Ming, which is proving longstanding partnership among three lines until now as well as in the future. We believe close cooperation under Premier Alliance would provide stable and competitive service network to our customers in East-West Trade.”
The three ocean carriers noted that further updates on specific services across the major trade lanes will be announced separately.
Dr. Feng-Ming Tsai, Chairman of Yang Ming, emphasized the importance of collaboration: “The continuous collaboration reflects the deep trust and shared vision among the three companies within the industry, and underscores our unwavering commitment to delivering great value and broad coverage for our customers.”
Although MSC, the world’s largest container line, has the capacity to operate completely independently, it has agreed to a slot exchange with the Premier Alliance. The slot exchange cooperation will involve nine services in the Asia-Europe trade.
Jeremy Nixon, CEO of ONE, highlighted the benefits of this collaboration: “Collectively the Premier Alliance and MSC, will be able to offer a very capable and extensive network of end-to-end port services to its customers from February 2025. We look forward to this new cooperation with MSC, and both collaborating on our respective joint operational expertise and combined network synergies.”
