2.1 Market Attractiveness: Trans-Pacific route appears attractive as number of shipping lanes has grown by 48.9% between 2002 and 2007, and projected to grow by 42.9% from 2007 to 2012. Loyal customers have also approached David expressing interest in staying with Meli should they provide trans-Pacific operations. Therefore, this market can potentially be a big revenue driver if Meli’s assets are properly aligned to capitalize it.
2.2 Benefits of Diversification: Trans Pacific route, particularly outgoing flows to North America, could offer diversification of income source to Meli Marine in periods when Intra-Asia’s demand is weak. Moreover, in most cases of macroeconomic downturns, countries such as Asia in 1990s will resort to export-push policies to stimulate the economy and a race to affordable transport options; these could enlarge the volume of outgoing freight flows.
2.3 Tit-for-Tat Strategy against Competitors’ Cascading: On a macro level, an expansion move to Asia-NA route will be a strong hit on their competitors “on their profit pool”, and also serve as a possible strategic tool to thwart competitors’ threat of cascading. However, when the financial crisis finally caught up with the shipping industry, combined with other factors, we saw a significant decline in this growth. Combined with economic factors like increasing fuel prices or capital costs associated with operating and maintaining technology advances, and political forces requiring shipping companies to be mindful of the affects their ships have on ocean waters, this once appealing industry has now lost its allure. Despite this recent lack of appeal, the industry still does have some positive features which can attract businesses. Since global commerce trade is primarily dependent upon trans-ocean shipping, and within the container shipping supply chain there are several segments to integrate