Jacksonville just landed a fresh win on the waterfront: a new weekly direct container service tying the city straight into some of Asia’s biggest export engines. Ships from Vietnam, China, South Korea and Japan will now steam directly into Blount Island, with the Ocean Alliance rotation scheduled to call at the SSA Jacksonville Container Terminal at JAXPORT’s Blount Island Marine Terminal. The April 8 announcement caps a run of new carrier commitments that have tilted toward Jacksonville as long-planned channel and terminal upgrades come online.
New rotation and carrier details
According to the Jacksonville Business Journal, the Ocean Alliance, a carrier consortium that includes CMA CGM, COSCO and Evergreen, will run weekly direct container sailings to ports in Vietnam, China, South Korea and Japan. The service will call at the SSA Jacksonville Container Terminal on Blount Island, where SSA operates the modernized facility that will handle the new rotation.
Where this fits in the network
Industry trackers say the move slots into Ocean Alliance’s 2026 network reshuffle, which adds more Southeast Asia calls and folds Jacksonville back into an East Coast rotation. SeaNews (citing the Journal of Commerce) reports the alliance has added Vietnam port calls and is reintroducing Jacksonville into a USEC and Gulf service loop.
Why Jacksonville is being chosen
Local port leaders have been relentlessly pitching Blount Island’s deeper federal channel, rebuilt berths and expanded yard capacity as reasons for carriers to lock in regular calls. In a recent press release, JAXPORT highlighted the 47-foot federal channel and terminal modernization at Blount Island as improvements intended to shore up schedule reliability. JAXPORT materials also note that the SSA terminal can now handle larger, post-Panamax vessels, a key selling point for alliance services.
JAXPORT officials, along with coverage from Port Technology, have detailed the broader suite of upgrades, including new cranes and yard improvements, that underpins the port’s push for more Asian calls.
What it means locally
For shippers in and around Jacksonville, direct calls from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian hubs can trim transit times and cut reliance on transshipment ports, which helps regional distributors and manufacturers lower logistics costs. Hoodline’s recent coverage of JAXPORT’s roughly $250 million modernization push, framed as a quarter-billion bet to keep Jacksonville cargo king, cast those investments as aimed squarely at attracting exactly this kind of steady carrier service. That reporting pointed to work on cranes, paved stacks and gate automation as central to Jacksonville’s appeal.
“Jacksonville’s position as the first Southeast port of call means shippers benefit from faster transit times and the efficiency of our modernized terminals,” JAXPORT Chief Commercial Officer Robert Peek said in a press release. The port said the new Ocean Alliance rotation is expected to boost regular imports from Asia and strengthen Jacksonville’s role as a gateway for the Southeast U.S. market, a vision JAXPORT ties directly to recent crane deliveries and yard upgrades.
