Grand Alliance Restructures Asia/North Europe EU2 Service

The Grand Alliance member lines, Hapag-Lloyd (HL), MISC Berhad. (MISC), Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), and Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) have announced the restructuring of the Asia/North Europe EU2 service from early 2007. An additional ship will be deployed to the current eight-ship service, now offering nine ships for a 63 days turnaround time service. The addition of 9th vessel to EU2 is an investment by the Grand Alliance members made to improve the schedule reliability. Following the successful implementation of this change, the GA intends to further enhance additional services through similar restructuring in the near future. The current EU2 schedule for rotation is: Kaohsiung – Shekou – Yantian - Hong Kong-Singapore-LeHarve-Amsterdam-Hamburg-Antwerp-Southampton- Gioia Tauro-Jeddah-JebelAli-Singapore-Kaohsiung.