Ellerman City Liners will end its joint operation with CMA CGM on the UK–Iberia corridor and launch a standalone service, branded INEX1, in October 2026.

The British carrier previously participated in CMA CGM's PGE service on the same corridor, according to DynaLiners. From October, Ellerman will deploy its own tonnage rather than relying on the French line's setup — a shift that moves the operator from partner to direct competitor on a niche intra-European trade.

The standalone loop keeps direct coverage between the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Portugal, but the Portuguese port calls change. Aveiro replaces the existing calls at Leixões and Setúbal, consolidating Ellerman's Iberian gateway into a single northern Portuguese port.

The full rotation reads: London Gateway at Tilbury – Rotterdam – Aveiro – London Gateway at Tilbury.

Capacity is modest. A single 500 TEU container ship will run the service on a rolling schedule. That vessel size signals the trade's character: short-sea, regional, and built around cargo that values frequency and direct port pairs over scale — the kind of freight that deep-sea alliances rarely serve with direct calls.

For shippers, the change cuts both ways. UK and Dutch exporters and importers on the corridor retain a direct, dedicated service with a named operator rather than space on a larger partner's vessel. But the loss of the Leixões and Setúbal calls means cargo previously moving through those ports faces an overland shift to Aveiro or a reroute via alternative carriers — a real cost consideration for northern and central Portuguese shippers in particular.

For CMA CGM, the split removes a partner from its PGE service and adds a small competitor on a corridor it previously shared. For forwarders, a standalone Ellerman loop adds an independent short-sea option at a moment when intra-European waterborne transport is being scrutinised as a lower-emissions alternative to road haulage — a 500 TEU ship moving cargo between Tilbury, Rotterdam and Aveiro is precisely the profile shippers can count toward modal-shift targets.

The commercial logic is straightforward. By operating its own vessel, Ellerman captures the full revenue of the corridor rather than a partner's allocation, controls the schedule and port pairs, and builds brand equity on a trade where the carrier's City Liners identity carries weight with UK customers. The trade-off is full exposure to vessel economics: one ship, no partner to share costs, and a rolling schedule that leaves little slack if the unit needs off-hire or drydock.

The choice of Aveiro over Leixões and Setúbal also concentrates risk and opportunity in one port. Aveiro sits closer to Portugal's industrial and forest-products heartland, and a fixed weekly call from a dedicated operator gives the port a reliable intra-European connection it can market — provided the displaced Leixões and Setúbal volumes actually migrate rather than leak to other carriers.

Between now and the October 2026 launch, the corridor's incumbents and slot charterers will need to decide whether the PGE service adjusts its own Portuguese calls to capture the cargo Ellerman is abandoning, or whether Leixões and Setúbal lose the direct link altogether. DynaLiners' reporting gives no indication of CMA CGM's response yet, but with roughly a year of lead time, capacity adjustments on the UK–Iberia trade — in both directions — remain the variable to watch.