An application of the genetic algorithm(GA) to the loading sequencing problem in port container terminals is presented in this paper. The efficiency of loading operations in port container terminals is highly dependent on the loading sequence of export containers. In order to sequence the loading operation, we hove to determine the route of each container handling equipment (transfer crane or straddle carried in the yard during the loading operation. The route of a container handling equipment is determined in a way of minimizing the total container handling time. An encoding method is developed which keeps intermediate solutions feasible and speeds up the evolution process. We determine the sequence of each individual container which the container handling equipment picks up at each yard-bay as well as the visiting sequence of yard-bays of the equipment during the loading operation. A numerical experiment is carried out to evaluate the performance of the algorithm developed.