It’s all change for ocean freight carrier alliances in 2025, with old agreements set to end and new partnerships being formed.

The disbanding of the 2M Alliance has been the catalyst for the changes, with the world’s two largest carriers, MSC & Maersk, set to end their ten year partnership in February.

MSC will largely be operating as an independent network from next year, but has recently confirmed that it will enter a vessel-sharing agreement (VSA) with THE Alliance (THEA), for nine Asia-Europe loops.

Whereby, Maersk previously confirmed that it will be entering into a new alliance with German carrier Hapag Lloyd in the newly formed Gemini Cooperation. As a result, Hapag Lloyd is leaving THEA.

Therefore, the newly agreed VSA with MSC will come as a major boost to THEA’s remaining members – Ocean Network Express (ONE), HMM and Yang Ming.

The carrier alliance structure for 2025 should look something like the below, unless there are any further changes in the next few months.

Independent
MSC  (VSA agreement in place with THEA on Asia-Europe).

GEMINI Cooperation
Maersk, Hapag Lloyd.

The OCEAN Alliance
CMA CGM, OOCL, Cosco, Evergreen. 

THE Alliance (THEA)
ONE, Yang Ming, HMM (VSA agreement in place with MSC on Asia-Europe)