On 27 April 2001, "Cape Charles", a vessel under NYK, arrived at YICT to launch Grand Alliance's new ECX service.
According to the schedule, the new US service will call at Yantian on Saturday. The routing follows the sequence as Pusan, Qingdao, Shanghai, Yantian, Hong Kong, Miami, Savannah, New York, Norfolk/Baltimore, Savannah and Pusan. "Cape Charles", the first caller, is 248.46 metres long with the shipping capacity of 2,571 TEU stowage.
Grand Alliance consists of Hapag-Lloyd, NYK, OOCL and P&O Nedlloyd. Each of the four lines has deployed its vessels in the newly opened ECX service.