The current overcapacity in the liners market and its consequences on freight rate for deepsea
shipping led the ship-operators to set between themselves so called “alliances”, in reality
joint ventures to optimize capacity and rationalize service. Starting with the aborted P3
proposal, several cases of technical and operational cooperation such as alliance, Vessel
Sharing Agreement (VSA) or Slot Exchanges (SE) have been succeedingly emerging and have
finally led to the creation (or the strengthening) of four huge alliances in the sector of
container shipping.