ONE reverses course: TIP service back this month, JTI goes intra-Asia

Ocean Network Express will reinstate its Thailand–India–Pakistan (TIP) service this month, just months after folding it into the Japan–Thailand–Vietnam–Indian Subcontinent (JTI) loop. The reversal unwinds a network decision taken in April, and it redraws two trade lanes at once.

The details come via DynaLiners. The reinstated TIP service will deploy five vessels of roughly 5,000 TEU each. Its rotation: Laem Chabang – Singapore – Port Klang – Nhava Sheva – Pipavav – Karachi – Colombo – back to Laem Chabang.

That's a full Thailand–India–Pakistan circuit restored, calling the three biggest gateway markets on the lane. Nhava Sheva and Karachi are back on a dedicated ONE string rather than sharing space with Japanese and Vietnamese cargo.

The JTI service pays for it. The loop loses its Indian Subcontinent coverage entirely and becomes a pure intra-Asia connection. It will deploy four vessels of about 4,500 TEU each. Its revised rotation: Tokyo – Yokohama – Shimizu – Nagoya – Osaka – Busan – Kobe – Manila – Laem Chabang – Ho Chi Minh City (Cai Mep) – Tokyo.

Two calls change in December. Busan and Manila join the JTI rotation, giving Korean and Philippine shippers direct access to the Japan–Southeast Asia string. That's the concrete upside of the restructuring for intra-Asia cargo owners.

What does this change for X-Press Feeders?

Plenty. X-Press Feeders currently takes slots on the JTI service and sells the connection under its own brand, HLS2. With the Indian Subcontinent calls leaving JTI, X-Press will transfer its allocation to the reinstated TIP service instead.

In practice, that keeps X-Press in the India–Southeast Asia game without it having to tonnage a loop of its own. Its customers effectively swap one string for another — same operator underneath, different port coverage, different vessel class.

For shippers, the immediate consequence is coverage clarity. Thai exporters moving to Nhava Sheva, Pipavav or Karachi now get a dedicated 5,000 TEU-class product again, rather than a longer composite rotation mixing Japan and Vietnam calls. Transit times on the India–Pakistan leg should tighten accordingly, since cargo no longer rides a loop that detours through Shimizu and Osaka.

Conversely, anyone using JTI to reach the Subcontinent loses that routing. Those flows will need to shift to TIP bookings — or to another carrier's string. ONE hasn't said whether TIP capacity absorbs all of JTI's former Subcontinent volumes, but five 5,000 TEU vessels is a serious commitment: roughly 25,000 TEU of deployed capacity on a lane where scheduling reliability matters more than headline size.

The bigger read

Carriers undo network mergers when the merged product underperforms. April's integration promised efficiency; within roughly half a year, ONE decided the Thailand–India–Pakistan traffic deserved its own tonnage again. Reading between the port calls, demand on the Subcontinent leg likely justified dedicated capacity — or the blended rotation simply served nobody particularly well.

For forwarders, the December additions of Busan and Manila to JTI open new intra-Asia routing options on a four-vessel string that now touches Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam in one loop. That's a tidy Japan–ASEAN corridor product.

The sequencing is tight: TIP returns this month, X-Press shifts its allocation across, and JTI's new-look rotation with Busan and Manila kicks in from December. Shippers on both strings should expect booking systems to reflect the split well before the December sailings — and rate desks will be watching whether restored dedicated capacity on the Subcontinent lane steadies or softens spot levels into year-end.