TAIWAN's Evergreen Marine Corp and Germany's Hanjin Shipping are combining their Far East-California, CPS 2 and CAX, loops to create a joint CPS 2/CAX loop to serve the transpacific trade in the post-peak season.

The new joint service will be launched on October 9 with the sailing of the Hanjin Milano from Ningbo in China. The move will halve the existing weekly capacity as the joint service will offer an average capacity of 4,050 TEU, against 8,100 TEU for the two current loops combined, reports Alphaliner.

Since May 2013 the partner carriers have been swapping slots between the two services, within a wider slot exchange agreement involving Hanjin's PSX loop as well.

It is expected that Cosco, Zim and NYK Line will continue to take slots on the new joint service given they already take slots on the CPS 2 and the CAX loops.

The port rotation of the joint CPS 2/CAX is Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Long Beach, Oakland, Tokyo, Osaka and back to Ningbo. The service deploys six 3,600 to 4,300-TEU ships and turns in six weeks.