Insight Focus
Gemini Cooperation leads reliability but faces growing market share pressure. The Maersk–Hapag-Lloyd alliance remains far ahead with 60% on-time performance, but still below its 90% target amid geopolitical disruptions. However, flat capacity deployment while rivals expand supply is expected to erode Gemini’s share across major east–west trades, highlighting a reliability–growth trade-off.
Gemini Cooperation, the new alliance between Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, has set a schedule reliability target of 90%+, which has been its primary “selling point.” It is therefore noteworthy to examine how the alliance has performed during the first months of 2026.
According to the latest schedule reliability report by Xeneta, Gemini remains the most reliable shipping alliance, having established a significant lead over the other groupings. In particular, the Maersk/Hapag-Lloyd alliance achieved a 60% score in February. Although this represents a 9% decline from its January performance, it still remains well ahead of its competitors.
The Ocean Alliance recorded a 20% score, the Premier Alliance reached 9%, while MSC posted a 19% score. However, a considerable gap remains before the Gemini alliance can reach its ambitious 90% target.
Source: Xeneta
It is evident that the current geopolitical instability has significantly affected the service networks and transit times of ocean carriers. The new reality, where both the Suez Canal/Red Sea corridor and the Strait of Hormuz are considered restricted zones, has essentially completely changed the shipping landscape compared to what was considered normal just three years ago.
Container shipping companies were forced to adjust their services almost overnight, creating severe challenges for all stakeholders across the supply chain. Against this backdrop, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have managed to retain a more than respectable level of schedule reliability, although significant improvement is still required in order to reach their ambitious targets.
Source: Xeneta
Gemini’s Capacity Market Share Under Pressure
In terms of capacity market share, however, the Gemini Cooperation is beginning to show some worrying signs. Between April 2025 and May 2026, Gemini’s share of Asia–North America West Coast weekly deployed capacity is projected to decline from 15% to 13%.
At the same time, the Asia–North America East Coast trade lane is expected to see a reduction from 20% to 17%, while Asia–North Europe is projected to fall from 27% to 23%.
Across all three trades, the contraction occurs almost entirely within a narrow window between mid-February and May 2026.
Source: Sea Intelligence
“While a declining capacity market share typically indicates a withdrawal of deployed capacity, the raw TEU figures reveal a different underlying mechanism,” noted Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, a Danish shipping data analysis firm.
Since Gemini’s weekly deployed capacity remains relatively flat across these trade lanes, the declining market share is instead the result of a rapid expansion in overall market deployment. Following the Chinese New Year dip, total capacity is rebounding at a very fast pace, according to Murphy.
“This market expansion is primarily being driven by the Ocean Alliance, which is scheduling close to the maximum design capacity on its services across these trade lanes, with hardly any blank sailings,” he added.
This structural divergence is another strong indication of the fundamentally different operational models between the Gemini Cooperation and the Ocean Alliance. The Ocean Alliance, comprising CMA CGM, COSCO, Evergreen and OOCL, is experiencing capacity growth accompanied by significant weekly volatility. This suggests a highly elastic network architecture, where the alliance scales supply in order to absorb expanding market demand, according to Sea-Intelligence’s analysis.
By contrast, Gemini displays a much lower volatility profile. Its more rigid deployment pattern points to a synchronized, closed-loop network that does not structurally flex to capture sudden market surges.
The resulting outcome is a clear operational trade-off, based on Sea-Intelligence’s report. Gemini provides a stable weekly capacity baseline, but because that baseline remains fixed while competitors expand their supply, the alliance of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd inevitably cedes relative market share.
What Is Gemini’s Next Move?
It will be interesting to see how the two partners of the Gemini Cooperation handle this situation. Will they continue to cede capacity market share to their competitors, or will they choose to follow a different path that allows them to adapt more quickly to changing market conditions?
Almost everything in the shipping industry has become highly uncertain, and nearly every strategic decision now carries a significant degree of risk. The power plays between the major ocean carriers and their alliances have always been an intriguing game, and one that often proves decisive for the direction of the market. Gemini’s decision will now be particularly interesting, both in terms of the path it chooses and how that choice ultimately affects the shipping sector.
