TNWA Carriers Reduce Capacity in Transpacific

DALLAS – Slowing demand for retail merchandise and corresponding reductions in inventory replenishment by retailers has prompted TNWA carriers to withdraw the PSW string in order to reduce operating costs associated with underutilized capacity.

The New World Alliance carriers have announced plans to remove capacity from the Transpacific Trade effective later this month. Beginning during week 29 in Asia, the PSW string will be withdrawn by the VSA. The string is comprised of five vessels, each averaging 3,960 TEU.

The TNWA decision to reduce capacity is borne of waning confidence in the strength of the U.S. retail market and generally lower expectations for import volumes. “Softening consumer demand is giving importers cause to retrench in regards to inventory levels previously planned for the upcoming holiday shopping season”, said Lamont Petersen, VPMarketing of Hyundai Merchant Marine. She went on to say that economic growth seems to be slowing to a crawl due to a myriad of factors including the weak housing market, high unemployment, growing inflation and uncertainty surrounding possible federal austerity programs here at home. Volumes of imported goods are being negatively impacted.

Hyundai and TNWA will accommodate their customers’ requirements for space, even during periods of increased demand, on remaining strings that duplicate the PSW ports of call. Other minor deployment changes are also being made to enhance service on remaining strings. The PCX will make a single call at Hyundai’s CUT (California United Terminal) in L.A. and a secondary call at Trapac Terminal will be dropped, which will reduce transit times by 1 day.

Additionally, the PCE string will make a single call in Busan at the Hyundai New Port Terminal, while the PS5 will now make a single call in Busan at PNIT.

About Hyundai Merchant Marine

HMM is an integrated multi-modal logistics company, operating over 110 state-of-the-art vessels. They operate more than 40 sea routes to over 100 ports of call. The Hyundai worldwide headquarters is in Seoul, Korea and their Americas headquarters is located in Dallas, TX. Go to www.hmm21.com for more information.