According to Sea-Intelligence, the Gemini Cooperation’s shuttles have helped develop overall schedule reliability hitting 98.4 per cent in February.
For over 30 years, container shipping alliances have focused solely on deep-sea services, with carriers managing feeder networks independently.
The Gemini Cooperation breaks this pattern, adopting a hub-and-spoke model that reduces mainliner calls and emphasizes transshipment via a dedicated shuttle network—set to include 28 services once fully deployed.
By February 2025, 15 Gemini shuttle services were launched — 10 in Asia, two in Europe, and three in the Indian Subcontinent/Middle East.
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Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, said: “There are few factors to take into consideration. Firstly, the true performance test of the new alliances (and MSC’s new network) will be when they are fully rolled out in July 2025.”
According to Sea-Intelligence, the initial month of the roll-out is typically the least challenging, with only a few vessels entering the new network; later phases are more complex as multiple vessels are phased in simultaneously.
Secondly, February 2025 schedule data was available for only 15 of the 28 planned Gemini shuttle services.
While these services recorded a significant number of arrivals, only a limited number of European shuttles had been launched during that period.
Thirdly, no Gemini mainliner services completed full origin-to-destination connections—such as from Asia to Europe — in February, as such transits require more than a month to complete.
Murphy added: “The Gemini shuttles have thus ‘only’ been feeding the mainliner services in February, and are yet to receive containers from mainliners, to be shipped to final discharge port. That said, even if it is still very early days, it is still an impressive first performance.”
