Swire Shipping, AAL to Enhance Asia to Australia Services

Singapore-based Swire Shipping and its compatriot breakbulk, project cargo and heavy lift carrier AAL entered into a space sharing agreement to boost North Asia to Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) services that are scheduled to launch on December 14, 2015.

Swire Shipping said that port rotations will be optimised with calls in all the key Asian and Australian ports, namely the load ports of Tianjin, Qingdao and Shanghai in China; Incheon and Pusan in South Korea; Kaohsiung in Taiwan and Phu My in Vietnam, and destination ports Brisbane, Newcastle, Melbourne, Geelong and Bell Bay in Australia.

Sailing frequency is set to improve significantly from a number of key ports from 30 to 20 days.

“Shortened voyages and focused port selection, will improve transit times on individual voyages,” AAL said.

Swire Shipping said it will deploy two new SClass 30,000dwt multipurpose vessels, while AAL will deploy two A-Class 31,000 dwt heavylift vessels on the route.

The two carriers will remain independent with separate commercial and operations functions.

“Here in the Asia-Pacific, we are reinforcing a well established trade and demonstrating our commitment to local customers and the wider Australian breakbulk, project and heavy lift market – notwithstanding clear economic challenges in the region,” Christophe Grammare, Managing Director of AAL’s Liner Services Division, said.