Pakistan Freight Forwarding Services
Air & Sea Freight Between Pakistan and the UK

Shippers urged to check routings as alliances redraw Asia-S America trade

Maersk has lost both its partners on Asia-East Coast South America in three months, and what looks like a local reshuffle is the alliance map redrawing on a trade the alliances never formally covered. In September, Zim quit Maersk's ASAS loop to launch the AS3/ZFS with Hapag-Lloyd; yesterday, Maersk and CMA CGM said they would end their joint ASAS2/SEAS3 service, with the last sailing leaving Shanghai on 8 December; and CMA CGM is relaunching its two remaining loops, SEAS 2 and SEAS A, a few days after that. East Coast South America (ECSA) has always been a trade on which carriers mixed freely, whatever badge they wore on Asia-Europe. From December, I expect it to look like a scale model of the alliance world. Who sails with whom The clearest move is Ocean Alliance closing ranks. My read is that the revised SEAS 2 and SEAS A will carry only CMA CGM, Cosco, OOCL and Evergreen - PIL and Yang Ming, long-standing members of that ECSA consortium, are out. PIL does not go far. I expect it to join AS3/ZFS, bringing four 14,000 teu ships from its old ES1 slot. That suits Hapag-Lloyd and Zim, which are short of tonnage to complete the rotation. It also creates a third bloc built around Hapag-Lloyd, even though its merger with Zim is stuck in regulatory review. Yang Ming falls back on SX2, the loop it shares with ONE and HMM. The three Premier Alliance lines end up on one ECSA loop together, and on the smallest one, with ships averaging around 6,600 teu. Maersk is now sole operator on ASAS, with Gemini partner Hapag-Lloyd buying slots. MSC carries on with Ipanema and Carioca, with Hapag-Lloyd and ONE on board. Hapag-Lloyd is the only carrier sitting in three camps at once: on Maersk's loop, on MSC's, and on its own with Zim. Ports: calls move, few disappear The loop redesigns shift calls rather than cut them. SEAS A puts Santos first and adds Coega (Ngqura) on the way home, but drops Rio de Janeiro and Paranaguá. SEAS 2 picks up Itajaí from the departing ASAS2 and calls Rio twice. Navegantes loses its SEAS 2 call and leans on SEAS A. The winners are Coega, which now has two direct Asia-bound reefer options in ASAS and SEAS A, and Rio, which keeps strong coverage. Xiamen depends on a single loop, AS3/ZFS. Singapore is the call I would watch: AS3/ZFS skips it, and PIL, whose home hub it is, will want it added. YML & PIL are losing a wide range of coverage: Navegantes, Buenos Aires and Montevideo - the former could also be added in ZFS with PIL coming in, the later would be a harder sell to Zim/Hapag-Lloyd as it would transform their new product structurally. Ocean-Alliance and MSC would then be the only carriers to serve Plata ports with direct products for the time being. Shippers: less capacity, fewer fallbacks By my count, nominal weekly capacity from Asia drops about 4%: ASAS2's seven CMA CGM ships would leave the trade, and PIL's larger ships on AS3/ZFS only partly offset that. With demand looking healthy, that gives carriers a firmer floor into the first quarter of next year. The bigger change is resilience. Maersk now has one loop and no in-house backup when a sailing is blanked. Yang Ming customers move onto a small, shared loop with no direct Paranaguá, Itajaí, or River Plate calls, so I expect tight space and rollovers there. My advice to shippers is simple: check your December routings now, and split contracts across at least two carriers that run their own ships. A scale model of the bigger game ECSA shows where the industry is heading. MSC stands tall alone, Ocean Alliance consolidates, Maersk bets on controlling its own network, Hapag-Lloyd hedges across every camp, and smaller lines get pushed to the edges. Shippers on this trade will feel it first. They should treat December as a preview of what alliance strategy does to trades well beyond South America.

Growing trade driving congestion and delays at West African ports

Strong volume growth along the West African coast growth is proving the double-edged sword some had warned of, with many of the ports that had been reaping rewards now subject to heavy and intensifying congestion. Ghana, Guinea, and Sierra Leone are among the countries most affected by delays sprouting up along the coast, all three rapidly approaching similar volumes to those handled in the entirety of 2025. Forwarders active on West African trades told The Loadstar they too had observed the congestion hobbling many of the ports' ability to function effectively, one expressing concern over looming temperature-controlled cargo due for delivery. A forwarder with volumes destined for Temam in Ghanam told The Loadstar: "CMA CGM has announced a congestion charge of $400 per teu for these shipments. This means an additional cost of $800 for each 40ft refrigerated container." Hapag-Lloyd has also announced a $250 surcharge on reefer shipments destined for Tema, which became applicable for shipments sailing as of yesterday, adding to the worries of cargo owners. The carrier has warned customers to expect delays of 10 days for discharging and loading goods, although Portcast claims that the situation at the Ghanian port may be improving, average waits having fallen below the four-day average, an improvement on last week. Instead, it singles Conakry and Freetown as the ports to be concerned about, congestion delays at both exceeding 10 days - a rapid deterioration at the Sierra Leone capital's gateway saw delays increase by four days, week on week, and by more than a day at Conakry. Only a month ago, Sierra Leone Ports and Harbours Authority director general Yankuba Askia Bio claimed a "decongestion" effort, led by multiple stakeholders, had succeeded, resulting in Freetown being removed from a list of congested African gateways. Efforts at Conakry to mitigate the worst of the congestion have seen trucks operating around the clock at Guinea's main gateway to keep cargo flowing, and ensure the backlog does not worsen. While at Tema, the Ghana Shippers' Authority said last month it was working with the port authority, shipping lines, and terminal operators to increase vessel calls to accelerate empty-container evacuation. But there is growing recognition across the sector that against a backdrop of surging volume growth, the ports are delaying what will inevitably be needed if they are to avoid a catastrophic collapse in supply chains - investment and expansion in infrastructure.

CH Robinson to purchase RXO in multi-billion dollar deal

Blockbuster tie up on the cards here: CH Robinson has agreed to buy RXO in a deal with an "implied value" of $5.8bn, with shareholders pocketing a healthy 29% premium in the process. Combining CH Robinson's global forwarding and multimodal network with RXO's North American truck brokerage operation and expedited and last-mile businesses, the buyer is hoping the merger will deliver $300m in annual savings - and that it will happen within two years of the deal closing. Subject to regulatory and shareholder approval - which will see CH Robinson taking on additional debt and putting share buybacks on hold as it pays down the deal cost - it is all expected to be wrapped up before H2 next year.