A consortium of five Asia-based container carriers – Hanjin Shipping MOL, K Line, OOCL and Coscon – will expand its Far East-Australia services from February next year in response to market demand.

The new service, named FOX (Far East Asia Oceania Express), will launch on 14 February 2016 with an aim of improving vessel transit times and coverage.

Hanjin Shipping will provide two ships for the FOX service, while MOL, K Line, OOCL and Coscon will deploy one vessel each, making a total of six ships.

The port rotation for FOX will be Yokohama, Osaka, Busan, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and back to Yokohama.

Hanjin Shipping said that by introducing the new FOX service, its existing CKA service covering China-Korea-Australia and NEAX service covering Japan will be integrated, leading to broader and direct port coverage in Far East and Australia.