In a surprise announcement, Denmark’s Maersk and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd said on January 17 they would establish a “new long-term operational collaboration” from February 2025.

The Financial Times said Maersk, which controls 14.6% of global container ship capacity, had been expected to operate without alliance partners after January 2025.

Reuters reported that the current arrangement of operational responses to attacks on ships in the Red Sea by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen is unlikely to have been a factor in the deal, sources familiar with the deal said.

Hapag-Lloyd’s statement said the collaboration, which goes by the Gemini Cooperation, aims to deliver a “flexible and interconnected ocean network with industry-leading reliability.”

“Teaming up with Maersk will help us to further boost the quality we deliver to our customers. Additionally, we will benefit from efficiency gains in our operations and joint efforts to further accelerate the decarbonization of our industry,” says Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd.
 
The new cooperation between Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk will comprise a fleet pool of around 290 vessels with a combined capacity of 3.4 million containers (TEU); Maersk will deploy 60% and Hapag-Lloyd 40%.

“We are pleased to enter this cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd, which is the ideal ocean partner on our strategic journey. By entering this cooperation, we will be offering our customers a flexible ocean network that will be raising the bar for reliability in the industry. This will strengthen our integrated logistics offering and meet our customers’ needs,” says Vincent Clerc, CEO of Maersk.
 
As a part of the agreement, the two companies said they have set the "ambitious" target of delivering schedule reliability of above 90% once the network is fully phased in. 

The statement went on to say that both companies are committed to the decarbonization of their fleets and have set the most ambitious decarbonization targets in the industry, with Maersk aiming for net-zero in 2040 and Hapag-Lloyd in 2045.

As a consequence of joining this cooperation, Hapag-Lloyd will leave the “THE Alliance,” consisting of Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, Ocean Network Express and Yang Ming, at end of January 2025. In January 2023, Maersk and MSC announced that the 2M alliance will end in January 2025.