MEDITERRANEAN Shipping Co. (MSC) and Maersk are to cease a service between Asia and Black Sea ports in the first week of November.
MSC calls it the Great Sea service, while Maersk brands the service as the E3. Maersk said it would merge the AE3 loop with its AE15 service.
“This will result in a downscale of nine 5,500-TEU vessels,” the Danish shipping line was cited as saying in a report by American Shipper. “We are dedicated to continuously serve our customers on this trade and will establish a comprehensive feeder setup to cater for all the Black Sea markets.”
“The decision to withdraw this service is due to unexpectedly low demand out of Asia. We have to adapt our capacity to the demand in these difficult times,” said senior vice president of MSC, Caroline Becquart. “While current demand is not sufficient to meet the costs of running a dedicated service, we are committed to provide solutions for our customers.”
MSC said the Black Sea region will be served by transshipping Asia cargo in Asyaport, which is located in Barbaros, Tekirdag, Turkey.
The Great Sea service is the eastern half of a pendulum loop. After returning from the Black Sea to call at ports in the Far East, ships continue to sail eastwards to North America, calling at the ports of Seattle and Vancouver. They then turn around and sail west, calling at Far East ports before continuing on to the Black Sea.
MSC calls the transpacific portion of the pendulum service the “Eagle,” while Maersk calls it the TP9. MSC will continue to operate the Eagle service as a standard transpacific loop.
The new port rotation for the Eagle service will be: Hong Kong, Yantian, Shanghai, Busan, Vancouver, Seattle, Yokohama, Busan, Shanghai, and Hong Kong and will be operated with six 5,000-TEU ships.
Source: SeaNews
Source: SeaNews