China's state-owned Hainan PO Shipping bows out on the transpacific

HAINAN PO Shipping (HPOS) is expected to exit the transpacific trade at the end of November, ending its 27-month involvement on the Far East-US trade lane.

The state-owned carrier, established by the Hainan Yangpu Economic Development Zone in January 2009, first entered the transpacific trade in August 2010, offering its China-America West Coast Express (CAE) service using five ships of 2,700 to 3,500 TEU.

It was joined by TS Lines in November 2010 when the latter became a vessel provider on the CAE. By December 2011, the HPOS/TSL service was scrapped and TS Lines left the trade.

HPOS continued to offer Far East-US services through slots on CSCL's America-Asia Container (AAC) service, with a weekly round-trip allocation of 800 TEU from December 2011. This was supplemented by 300 TEU weekly on Cosco's transpacific service from February to April 2012.

"HPOS also offered several ad-hoc transpacific sailings this year in an unsuccessful attempt to revive its own service and maintain its status as a VOCC. The last HPOS transpacific sailing with its own ship occurred in July," reports Alphaliner.

"With the slot agreement with CSCL due to expire on December 5, HPOS will not be able to maintain transpacific tariffs filed with the FMC from November 29, and is therefore expected to discontinue its services to the US from that date."