大船舶,大联盟

Big ships,big alliances

达飞轮船和地中海航运达成的广泛协议可能会使小型航运商无处容身。但是，如今的超大型船舶能满足这两大巨头的胃口吗？

A far-reaching agreement between CMA CGM and MSC may chase out smaller operators,but are today's mega-ships big enough for two huge carriers? Ocean carriers have spent the past week number-crunching to gauge the impact of the sudden announcement from Mediterranean Shipping and CMA CGM that the world's second- and third-largest lines are pooling services on key liner trade lanes.None more so than Maersk Line,the world's top carrier,which acted as catalyst to the deal by ordering the world's biggest ships earlier in the year followed by the recent launch of a daily service between Asia and Europe in game-changing moves that threatened to eclipse its closet rivals.Nobody doubts the potential of the partnership between France's CMA CGM and Geneva-based MSC on the Asia-North Europe,Asia-Southern Africa and South America routes to restructure the industry,not least by driving smaller,more vulnerable carriers out of business and forcing mid-sized players to chase copycat deals.Beyond that,nothing is certain because the alliance,which takes effect in March for an initial two years,may simply turn out to be a temporary marriage of convenience giving the two family-owned carriers breathing space to sit out slowing cargo growth that is undermining the economics of their cargo-hungry large vessels.The alliance will have the biggest impact on Asia-North Europe lanes,where it will operate four strings,deploying 44 ships of more than 11,000 20-foot equivalent container units.