Spotlight
Ocean Alliance, ONE rework trans-Atlantic network
The Ocean Alliance and Ocean Network Express( ONE) will remove some ships and consolidate US port calls in their jointly-operated trans-Atlantic network. The move follows an uneven year in the trade, with US imports from Europe slowing while exports to Europe grew strongly. The new network, which will commence in April, will provide the US East Coast with“ stronger coverage [ and ] reinforced frequency” and better leverage CMA CGM’ s US and European terminals, the Ocean Alliance partner said in a statement. The biggest change will be the end of the“ Unity Bridge” service between major Northern European ports and the ports of Charleston and Savannah. Unity Bridge, which operates with four ONE ships and one Evergreen Marine vessel, will make its last westbound departure from Le Havre on March 16. The south Atlantic US ports will instead be included on the rotation for the higher-capacity Liberty Bridge service, which currently calls the ports of New York-New Jersey, Norfolk and Baltimore. The new Liberty Bridge service will drop Baltimore as of the first westbound sailing from Southampton on March 27. Charleston and Savannah will be added after the Norfolk call. The new trans-Atlantic network comes after the Ocean Alliance and ONE revised their one-year-old vessel sharing agreement filed with the US Federal Maritime Commission( FMC) on Feb. 6 to consolidate their north and south Atlantic networks into a broader North American trans-Atlantic service. marchello74 / Shutterstock. com
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Gemini reliability greater than its parts
Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd broke further away from other ocean carriers in on-time performance in 2025, although vessels under their new Gemini Cooperation alliance showed better reliability than their standalone services, data from Xeneta shows. Most other carriers saw performance remaining flat last year, with reliability varying among other alliances. Xeneta’ s“ Schedule Reliability Scorecard” for 2025 showed that Maersk saw 56 % of all its ships arrive on time last year, with an average delay of two days. That is up from the 37 % on-time performance and average two-and-half day delay reported at the end of 2024 by eeSea, which Xeneta acquired last August. Meanwhile, second-place Hapag-Lloyd also saw improvement in its 2025 overall reliability, with 52 % of all vessels arriving on time and an average delay of three days. At the end of 2024, Hapag-Lloyd saw only about a fifth of its ships arriving on time with an average delay of close to five days. The gain for each carrier stems from the jointly operated services under the Gemini partnership, with vessels in the alliance hitting 81 % schedule reliability. But Xeneta said the performance data shows“ the reliability of their non-alliance partnerships generally falls short of Gemini’ s optimized structure.” The average delay days for Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are the lowest among the 12 global ocean carriers in Xeneta’ s benchmark. Among that group, delays averaged about four-and-half days. Cosco Shipping and Wan Hai Lines saw average delays of just under threeand-half days, while HMM saw an average eight-and-half-day delay, the highest among the dozen carriers on Xeneta’ s list.
‘ Patchwork’ schemes undermining decarbonization
A series of maritime carbon pricing schemes either in effect or under development in various jurisdictions is reinforcing industry concerns that the absence of global regulation will lead to overlapping measures that undermine shipping’ s decarbonization drive. The International Maritime Organization last October was forced to delay adoption of its net-zero framework for a year. At the time, critics warned the delay would lead to a host of local carbon pricing initiatives that would be difficult for carriers to navigate; according to design and engineering consultancy BAR Technologies, momentum is building in that direction.“ Carbon compliance is becoming more fragmented by the month,” BAR Technologies CEO John Cooper said in a statement.“ Instead of building momentum behind a single global framework, we’ re creating a patchwork of schemes with different baselines, rules and cost mechanisms. That creates confusion, inflates costs, and weakens the industry’ s ability to invest in real, scalable solutions,” he said. According to the International Carbon Action Partnership( ICAP), the carbon pricing measures currently in effect are the European Union emissions trading system( EU ETS), the South Korean ETS, the New Zealand ETS, and the China Shanghai pilot ETS that has been in force since 2013. A Brazilian greenhouse gas( GHG) emissions trading system is under development. The British House of Commons voted to roll out a UK ETS to the domestic maritime
6 Journal of Commerce | March 2, 2026 www. joc. com