Part A Unit Outline

This unit discusses the topic of liner shipping, reflecting the trend toward more and more strategic alliances in liner shipping.

● Liner shipping is a sophisticated network of regularly scheduled services and is growing at a high pace with the increasing global container traffic.

● Liner shipping presents many features, such as regular and repeated sailings from and to designated ports, liner operators being common carriers accepting any legal cargo without discrimination, much higher value and higher freight rates of liner goods than tramp goods, standard contract of carriage or B/L used, stable and identical freight rates for all shippers of the same item on board a certain ship, liner services adjusted to meet the demands of shippers, liner vessels reflecting in their design the special requirements encountered in their employment, liner companies having a large and somewhat complex organization in the shore establishment, procurement of cargo being the responsibility of the traffic department, and fewer than 12 passengers sometimes being carried in cargo liners.

● Liner shipping has such advantages as the most efficient mode of transport with high carrying capacity, and global economic engine. Meanwhile, basic charges and additional charges are the two parts of liner freight. Basic charges can be calculated by W/T, M/T, A.V., W/M, or A.V., W/M plus A.V., the number of the cargoes, or as agreed by the shipper and the carrier; and additional charges take many forms, such as BAF, CAF, etc.

● For more than 20 years, liner companies has been forming strategic alliances to realize economies of scale, to extend scope and network, to extend their customer base, and to increase asset utilization, while providing customers with more frequent sailings and faster transit times. Alliances account for more than two thirds of the liner services on major global routes. Formation, motives, types and areas, features, and factors affecting task complexity of strategic alliances, and key reasons for successful strategic alliances have been presented in this part.

● Design of liner services, liner companies, and Hamburg port are explicated as the further reading materials.