East London gets weekly F-E caller

The decision by Maersk Line to launch a new weekly service between the Far East and South Africa (see FTW 10 July) will have
a dramatic affect on East London, which will now
benefit from a weekly named day service for the first time.
Maersk's man in East London, Gary Calder says this new service will ensure an unmatched schedule of reliability while Portnet's Terry Taylor said it would present East London business people with more shipping opportunities. Maersk opened an office at the Eastern Cape city one year ago and the company has enjoyed extensive support from the local canning industry.
Recently the Good Hope Express container service switched to using East London as a result of congestion problems in Durban. At the time NYK said this would continue until the end of July, after which the question of calling at East London would be re-assessed.
By Terry Hutson