U.S. Federal Maritime Commissioners yesterday unanimously voted to allow CKYH partners and Evergreen Line to discuss cooperating in the trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trades.

The discussion agreement allows the carriers to look at launching vessel-sharing agreements on the two major trade lanes while gauging the market and how other carrier alliances take shape. Cosco, “K” Line, Yang Ming, Hanjin Shipping and Evergreen have had an alliance on the Asia-North Europe and Asia-Mediterranean routes since March. Most of the lines already have cross-slot arrangements with each other on major U.S. routes, but a formalized alliance would give them more structured slot-sharing.

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