Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Maersk Line adds Le Havre, Hamburg, Zeebrugge to Daily Maersk from February

maersk_line_add_port_call_le_havre_and_zeebrugge

DANISH shipping giant Maersk Line has announced it will add port calls at Le Havre, Hamburg and Zeebrugge in February in its Daily Maersk service to enhance its "conveyor belt" concept on its main Asia-Europe route.

The service requires a 26-day transit from Shanghai to Zeebrugge and Le Havre and 28 days to Hamburg, reports Newark's Journal of Commerce, adding that Maersk has ended its vessel sharing agreement with CMA CGM after the newly announced CMA CGM-MSC alliance.

Said Maersk's vice president of Europe service Vincent Clerc: "The cancellation of the vessel sharing agreement ... offered us another opportunity to look at how we serve customers moving cargo between Asia and north Europe.

"We found that without CMA we could actually offer an enhanced service to more customers in more corridors and maintain our promise on the Daily Maersk corridors. So that is what we did."

CMA CGM chief financial officer Michel Sirat said the key aim of forming an alliance with MSC is to upgrade services so that the two carriers can compete with Maersk.

The 13,092-TEU Maersk Edison will be responsible for the last sailing in the vessel sharing agreement with CMA CGM, with a cut-off in Ningbo, China on February 16.

The world's largest carriers said it will offer a new Asia-Mediterranean service to replace the one partnering with CMA CGM now.

The report said shippers will benefit from shorter transit times and higher reliability. But they cannot receive cash compensation for late guaranteed deliveries available on the Daily Maersk service connecting four Asian ports with Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Felixstowe.

Daily Maersk currently deploys 70 ships, offering daily Asia-Europe service seven days a week between Ningbo, Shanghai, Shenzhen-Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas and northern Europe.

source: shippinggazette / picture: google.com

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