Capacity constraints in the Pacific trades as well as Southern California’s ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach has seen substantial delays for cargo, but Maersk’s latest service, in partnership with Zim and MSC, is designed to circumvent these constraints by heading to the US East Coast via the Panama Canal.
From May this year the Danish and Israeli operators will deploy 10 ships, eight vessels from Maersk while Zim will offer two ships, all of around 6,500TEU to the service, but MSC will be a non-vessel operating partner.
Labelled the TP23, the joint service will operate from Vietnam and China heading to the US East Coast.
“The TP23 rotation is intended to be Vung Tau, Vietnam/Yantian, South China/Panama Canal/Savannah /Charleston/Newark, while due to congestion in Savannah, the rotation will initially and until further notice swap the US calls to go Charleston/Savannah/Newark,” said the carrier.
The new service is intended to improve speed, reliability and coverage and integrate into US East Coast landside logistics service networks, pointed out Maersk.
Transit times from Yantian to Savannah should be three to four days shorter, at 28-29 days, while Yantian to Charleston will also be 28-29 days, saving seven to eight days in total, compared to existing services.
“The Vietnam call has been added to provide more capacity to the rapidly growing market that has seen gains of 52% and 25% the past two years,” added Maersk.
Narin Phol, managing director of Maersk North America commented, “Importers are looking for more US East Coast gateways in their Asia/North America supply chains while exporters are looking for more equipment – especially in the Southeast US region. The TP23 service will enable us to address these needs while integrating our Warehousing & Distribution network.”
Maersk’s goal in 2021 is to enable customers to grow their business through an integrated and efficient supply chain model, noted Phol.
Source: Container news
