Cai Mep loses its shine

Within the first two years of its opening, a total of 15 weekly linehaul services (excluding feeder services) added Cai Mep to their rotations. However, interest has waned with weaker than expected cargo volumes, resulting in a reduction in the number of linehaul services calling at Cai Mep to just eight loops. These comprise seven intercontinental services and a long haul intra Asia service.

CMA CGM is the latest carrier to drop Cai Mep calls as it removed the port from its Asia-Europe \’FAL 3\’ loop in favour of a new Pearl River Delta call at Yantian, effective from the first week in July. CMA CGM will also stretch the rotation of the \’FAL 3\’ by one week, from eleven to twelve weeks, with the addition a further vessel as it adopts super slow steaming on certain legs of the service. It will henceforth be run with twelve ships of 11,000-11,400 teu, all provided by CMA CGM.

The \’FAL 3\’ service deployed the largest ships to call hitherto at Cai Mep and it was the only CMA CGM service offering a direct Vietnam-Europe link, which is to be replaced temporarily by feeder connections at Singapore. The \’FAL 3\’ is also used by MSC and UASC through two separate slot exchange arrangements.