HYUNDAI Merchant Marine (HMM) of South Korea will start direct calls at Port Klang in Malaysia in its Pacific Southwest (PSW) service next month.
HMM has teamed up with Japan's Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K-Line) to jointly operate four sailings in the trans-Pacific trade - two on the PSW service and two on the Pacific Northwest (PNW) service.
The two companies will operate two services each independently but exchange slots for operational efficiency, a Hyundai official in Hong Kong said.
HMM will phase in five newbuildings of 5,500 TEUs by the end of October to replace the six 4,411 TEU vessels in the PSW service now.
The port rotation on HMM's PSW service will be Port Klang, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Pusan, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, Pusan, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Singapore, Port Klang.
The five 1,900 TEU vessels on HMM's PNW service will be replaced by five of 2,800 TEU in the second half of next year.
K-Line operates a weekly PSW service with five 3,200 teu ships calling at Hong Kong, Kobe, Nagoya, Shimizu, Tokyo, Long Beach, Oakland, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe (calls at Osaka up to March 26) and Hong Kong.