Shipping alliances redraw the forwarder's route map

The service catalog most Brazilian freight forwarders relied on through January 2025 became obsolete in February. The 2M ended. The Gemini Cooperation launched. THE Alliance rebranded as the Premier Alliance. MSC went solo. Routes, port calls and available capacity all moved around, and any forwarder quoting freight to Asia, Europe or the U.S. East Coast who hasn’t updated their reference is quoting from a map that no longer matches the territory.

The shipping alliance map changed in February 2025

Until late January 2025, global container shipping ran on three alliances plus one bilateral deal. Maersk and MSC shared vessels under the 2M. ONE, HMM and Yang Ming worked together as THE Alliance. CMA CGM, COSCO, Evergreen and OOCL made up the Ocean Alliance. Those groupings decided which vessels called which ports, how long each service took, and how many weekly sailings a forwarder could choose from on each trade lane.

February 2025 broke that arrangement. Maersk dropped the 2M with MSC and started the Gemini Cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd. ONE, HMM and Yang Ming stayed together but renamed themselves the Premier Alliance. The Ocean Alliance renewed through March 2032. MSC started running its fleet alone, the largest container fleet in the world. Three alliances with roughly similar setups became four groups, each with a different network model.

The forwarder quoting cargo notices right away. A service that used to call at Navegantes under the 2M might now be a Gemini service calling at Santos with a feeder leg onward. Same carrier name, different port rotation, different transit time, different transshipment point.

Gemini’s hub-and-spoke model reduces direct calls at Brazilian ports

Gemini’s network looks nothing like what Maersk ran under the 2M. Rather than stringing together many port calls on a single loop, Gemini funnels volume through hub ports and moves cargo to smaller ports on feeder vessels. According to Seatrade Maritime, the 2026 service restructuring locked in this logic across all East-West trades.

Brazilian forwarders feel this in two places. Fewer deep-sea vessels now call directly at Itajai, Navegantes, Paranagua and Suape. And transshipment at Santos has grown, with some trades routing through Caribbean ports or the west coast of Africa instead. A container that once went straight from Shanghai to Navegantes might now pass through Santos or another hub before arriving.

The upside is schedule performance. Industry data from 2025 showed Gemini hitting schedule reliability close to 90%, while the sector average stayed below 65%. That gap matters to an importer planning around arrival dates. The forwarder’s math is different, though: total transit time can grow on routes that now include a transshipment leg, even when the mainline vessel runs on time.

The Premier Alliance inherits vessels but redesigned its services

ONE, HMM and Yang Ming kept the operational partnership they had in THE Alliance, rebranding as the Premier Alliance in February 2025. Along with the new name came a redesigned service network. MSC, now independent, signed a slot-sharing deal with the Premier Alliance on Asia-Europe routes, but that deal does not cover South America. On routes to Brazil, each Premier Alliance carrier runs its own network.

The Premier Alliance’s 2026 network update, reported by Seatrade Maritime, includes changes in the makeup of Asia-South America services. For the Brazilian forwarder, this means space availability and transit times on ONE, HMM and Yang Ming services may not match what they were under THE Alliance, because the vessel string compositions changed.

A forwarder who used to book with ONE on an Asia-Brazil route should verify whether the same service still exists with the same port rotation and transit time. Often, it doesn’t.

MSC operates alone with the world’s largest fleet

MSC left the 2M in January 2025 and put its entire fleet to work independently. With over 800 container vessels and newbuild orders still adding capacity, MSC holds the largest installed tonnage of any carrier. Operating outside any alliance lets MSC launch or pull services based on demand alone, without waiting on alliance partners.

For the Brazilian forwarder, this split changes the negotiation. Under the 2M, a contract with either Maersk or MSC gave partial access to the other’s routes. That’s over. MSC’s services are now exclusive, and Maersk’s are separate. To cover the same routes the two carriers once shared, the forwarder has to negotiate with each one individually.

On Asia-Brazil trades, MSC keeps its own services calling at Santos, Itajai and Navegantes, and occasionally adds calls at northeastern Brazilian ports when cargo volumes justify it. Without alliance coordination, MSC can adjust port rotations faster in response to demand swings. During Brazil’s grain export season, for example, containers available for import shrink because vessels are busy moving exports, and MSC can reshuffle rotations on shorter notice than an alliance could.

What changed in practice for forwarders quoting freight in Brazil

The alliance reshuffle changed three things that feed into every freight quote: how many service options exist per trade lane, how long each one takes, and what leverage the forwarder has with each carrier.

Service options shifted because every group rebuilt its network. On the Asia-Brazil trade, a forwarder who used to pick from 2M services (Maersk and MSC together), THE Alliance and the Ocean Alliance now has to check Gemini, the Premier Alliance, the Ocean Alliance and MSC one by one. Some ports ended up with more weekly sailings. Others, especially those that lost direct deep-sea calls, ended up with fewer.

Transit times grew on routes where transshipment replaced a direct call. A container going from Ningbo to Navegantes on a direct 2M service used to take 30 to 35 days. On a Gemini service that stops at Santos and continues by feeder, that same move can take 38 to 42 days. The forwarder has to flag this when quoting, because transit time feeds into inventory planning, free time calculations and the total landed cost of the import.

Negotiating power moved around too. The Maersk/MSC split turned one counterparty into two, and Gemini and the Premier Alliance run separate networks. A forwarder who used to concentrate volume with one 2M carrier and rely on the shared network for complementary routes now has to split that volume or pay more on certain lanes. Annual contract talks got more complicated, and spot freight became a bigger factor on routes where service options thinned out.

Forwarders who keep a current picture of each carrier’s services, port rotations, transit times and rates by trade lane are in a stronger position. Those quoting from an old map risk promising transit times that no longer apply, or missing a cheaper option that appeared under a different alliance. Carrier consolidation was already pushing forwarders to adapt, and so was the pressure that Brazil’s grain harvest puts on import freight. The alliance reshuffle is one more layer of change forwarders have to absorb in 2025 and 2026.

How Tier2 Cargo tracks margins when services change

When services move around, the gap between quoted freight and actual cost tends to grow. Transit times and surcharges on transshipment routes don’t always match the original estimate. Tier2 Cargo records margin at three stages (quote, billing and settlement) and compares results by shipment, trade lane and carrier. If a service the forwarder was using disappeared and its replacement costs more, the difference shows up in margin tracking before it turns into a loss at month-end close.

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If you’re still working from the 2024 map, start by listing the services you use on your five busiest trade lanes. Check whether each one still runs the same port rotation and transit time, and recalculate projected margin on open quotes. The service catalog from February 2025 has already been updated for 2026. Catching those differences before you quote is how you keep margin intact.