Hapag-Lloyd is refining the Gemini Cooperation hub-and-spoke network with partner Maersk that will likely see some extra port calls and others removed from Gemini services, CEO Rolf Habben Jansen said Thursday.

The review is considering “what worked well and what could be improved,” Habben Jansen said during the carrier’s third-quarter results briefing.

“We’ll wrap up the review, then ... inform the market, but don’t expect anything revolutionary,” he said.

The changes will “strengthen reliability and unlock cost efficiencies, with full cost savings run rate expected by 2026,” Hapag-Lloyd said.

Habben Jansen also confirmed Gemini is mulling a price premium, which he forecast would be a “small three-digit number per TEU” to reflect the inventory cost savings customers achieve through Gemini’s consistent on-time delivery.

The CEO gave no further details of the changes, but said Gemini has consistently delivered monthly schedule reliability of 89% to 95% since its launch in February, citing data from Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis. That is significantly better than its closest competitors, who had schedule reliability ranging between 70% and 80% from February through September.

“We are very happy with [Gemini],” Habben Jansen said. “We hit 90% schedule reliability almost from Day 1.”

Possible expansion of hub-and-spoke model

That reliability helped drive an above-market increase in container volumes for Hapag-Lloyd, growing 9% to 10.2 million TEUs in the first nine months of the year. Most of the increase was on trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trades, while volumes on the trans-Atlantic, Africa and inter-regional trades were stable.

Highlighting the gains, the carrier said trans-Pacific volumes rose to 3 million TEUs this year through September, from 2.5 million TEUs in the same period last year, while Asia-Europe liftings climbed to 3 million TEUs from 2.7 million TEUs.

Habben Jansen said while the focus over the next 12 to 18 months is to improve reliability of the current Gemini network schedule, there is potential to adopt Gemini’s hub-and-spoke model in other trades. He said if Hapag-Lloyd did decide to expand the concept, it would have to assess how and where it could be done and “with whom.”

Habben Jansen also confirmed the carrier is in talks to add 22 ships to its fleet that would be a mix of newbuildings ordered direct from shipyards and vessels taken on long-term charter.

“Final negotiations are going on” with details likely confirmed “in the next 30 days,” he said.

The new ships would vary between 1,800 TEUs, 3,000 TEUs and 4,500 TEUs and replace older, less fuel-efficient vessels in the carrier’s 305-strong fleet. “We have a fair number of ships that are reaching 25 years,” Habben Jansen said.

The carrier is also planning to continue expanding its terminals business “through acquisitions and synergies with our liner business,” although Habben Jansen said there were no further details to give at this stage.

The CEO forecast full-year 2025 revenues at $23 billion.

“Rates came back from early October,” he said. “In the last couple of weeks, bookings have been really strong.”

Habben Jansen, meanwhile, said the carrier had no immediate plans to return to the Red Sea and Suez Canal region following the latest Houthi ceasefire. “We always said we’d like to see some stability,” he said, pointing out that previous ceasefires were later broken.

Hapag-Lloyd saw group net profit fall 86% to $161 million in the third quarter, down from $1.1 billion in the prior year. Revenue fell 11% to $5.4 billion in the third quarter, with liner shipping contributing $5.3 billion and terminals $130 million.

The carrier’s average freight rate in the quarter slipped to $1,391 per TEU from $1,612/TEU.