Maersk is facing aggressive competition on its north-south routes due to rival carriers seeking to offset their losses from the over-tonnaged Asia-Europe trade lane.
The Danish carrier has consistently made profits on these trade lanes as competitors find it difficult to establish themselves along those routes.
Maersk CEO Soren Skou said: “Our competitors have a lot of idle ships and are using them to move into the north-south routes.
“We can use our size to squeeze costs down. If we always have lower costs, we have something to defend ourselves.”
According to the Journal of Commerce, Maersk has an estimated 20% of capacity on north-south routes, including those connecting Australasia to China, Europe to Africa and the U.S. to South America.
Skou went on to say that Maersk’s 20-strong ‘Triple-E’ vessel fleet can now be fully-utilised along the Asia-Europe trade line due to its recent alliance with Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC).
Skou concluded: “Without this alliance, we would not be able to reap the full benefits of the Triple Es, so the alliance with MSC will be crucial to getting back to a state where we get a satisfactory return on our investments on routes between Europe and Asia.”
