Enhanced service caters for burgeoning West Africa market

Weather continues to be the biggest challenge for shipping lines servicing the perishable industry. According to Ian Fairlie, wind has played havoc with vessel operations – especially during the grape season from Cape Town. With the port closing down during periods of heavy winds, finding ways to deal with the weather remains high on the agenda. “Wind and other weather delays are overcome through better vessel planning to optimise our operations along the South African coast,” Fairlie told FTW. “In addition we sail at increased speed from Cape Town to Rotterdam to try to recover the lost time." Another issue that has continued to hamper operations is the recent Navis glitches at South Africa’s big ports – including Durban and Cape Town. “The container lines in particular were impacted as operations came to a standstill during Navis downtimes, but this seems to be something of the past as the problems that were being experienced have been dealt with.” According to Fairlie, despite the challenges that are faced and overcome, the outlook for the perishable industry in the country remains positive. “In this regard MSC has recently enhanced a number of services to better serve the sector,” he said. “Late last year we introduced a standalone service between South Africa and West Africa, a region that is one of the fastest-growing perishable markets for South African exporters.” This service, said Fairlie, gives shippers a viable alternative as it calls at some of the main West African ports. “Early this year MSC added a Ngqura port call to the IPAK service, which now offers a direct option from Ngqura to the growing Middle East market and a very reliable service from Cape Town via Ngqura as well.” Fairlie said MSC had also established its own agency in Walvis Bay that would allow them to focus on the fish export market out of Namibia. CAPTION The MSC Abidjan sailing from Cape Town on her maiden voyage to South Africa.