b'6American Journal of Transportation ajot.comACL AJOT_SailSchedule_2020_ACL2/27/209:33 AMPage 1Ocean Carrier Alliances OThe Tripartite ONNEESSHHIIPPOcean carrier alliances are big, powerfulC onand evolving.Co nttaaiinneerrss,,RROORROO,,BBrreeaakkbbuullkkCCaarrggooBy George Lauriat, AJOTThe real structure of theservice redundancies, deploy-globalsupplychainresidesmentscanbemadewithfar in the ocean carrier alliances.more efficient utilization over Fromanorganizationalper- a much wider number of ser-spective,itistheservicevice loops. Since the business schedules within the big threeofshippinghasinherently oceancarrieralliancesthathigh upfront asset costs, col-providetheframeworkforlaboration with other carriers the global supply chain.with similar service strengthsRORO Customer ServiceThis is not new. In vari- and goals is one of the mostA SERVICE AL1 SERVICE AL2 SERVICE 877-918-7676Cuto Friday Cuto Thursday Cuto Mondayous forms, ocean carriers havestraight forward ways of con- FROM NEW YORK LOLO RORO LOLO LOLO Export Customer Servicebeen cooperating in scheduledtaining costs.TO Transit Time Transit Time Transit Time Transit Time 800-225-1235Export Documentation services or defined trade lanesCarrier collaboration withinANTWERP 1620 18888-802-0401forcenturies.Insomeways,thealliancescoversawideDUBLIN 12Import Customer Servicethenewgenerationofship- spread of organizational opera- BELFAST 13888-802-0403GTEBORG 21 pingalliancesisthesucces- tions.WhiletypicalcarrierHAMBURG 13 17 15 22 Logisticssor to the shipping conferencebackroom work like stowage,LE HAVRE17 866-821-7449Credit & Collectionssystem of the 1880s.schedulingandmaintenanceLIVERPOOL 9 13 888-225-7747LONDON GATEWAY20 19Whatsdifferentnow(TRIPARTITEcontinuedROTTERDAM11 20besidesthetermsbywhichon page 7)ocean carriers can act cooper-atively without evoking anti-monopolisticretributionis the concentration of line haul capacitylargelyintothree oceancarrieralliances:2M, THE Alliance and Ocean Alli-ance (see chart on next page).Collectively, the 2M Alli-ance(MaerskandMSC), THE Alliance (Hapag Lloyd, ONE,HyundaiMerchant Marine and Yang Ming) and the Ocean Alliance (COSCO, CMACGMandEvergreen) deploy3,126vesselswith over20millionTEUsof capacity. This total represents around 80% of the capacity of the containership fleet and an even higher percentage of the line haul capacity. The big three ocean car-rier alliances are composed of nine of the top ten container lines. It is the concentration ofcapacitythatenablesthe tripartiteofcarrieralliances tofunctioneffectively.For example,the2Malliance carriersdeploysome1,301 vesselsofjustover8mil-lion TEUs of capacity while the Ocean Alliance members have1,258shipswithover 7millionTEUsofcapac-ity. The Alliance (THEA) is the smallest of the three but stillthememberscommand a fleet of 641 vessels of over 4.7 million TEUs. While not all the member vessels oper-ate solely within alliances at any given moment, the sheer size of the collectivetripar-tite gives pause for thought.a llianCea dvantageS e veryBody into thep oolBasically, a shipping alli-anceisthepoolingofships [generallythesametypeof ships]byvariouscarriers with the goal of running regu-larstylelinerservices.The advantageofvesselpooling for the carriers is largely one of streamliningschedulingand thusmoreefficienttradelane and port coverage. With fewer'