Line mulls financial penalty for delays to shippers ... but not in SA

The concept of a service
level agreement – in which
Maersk Line is mulling
accepting financial penalties
in its Asia-Europe contracts
if it is unable to deliver the
service it has promised – is
not currently on the table for
SA, according to Maersk MD
David Williams.
The problem that is behind
the European plans for a
possible agreement is one
that hit the shipping industry
at the start of this year, when
an unexpected surge of
volumes resulted in demand
exceeding supply and
shipments being delayed.
Maersk wants shippers
to provide more accurate
information on when they
would need goods shipped so
that the line can better match
demand and supply.
At the same time – if
shippers clarify their
shipping schedules to the
line – Maersk is considering
accepting financial penalties
if it fails to deliver the
service it has sold, according
to Annemette Jepsen, senior
director and cluster manager
UK and Ireland.
She added that this
would require customers
to get better at forecasting
their needs. The line is not
expecting them to provide
tight figures for the whole
year ahead. “But we need to
have something that will help
ensure that customers use
slots when they have booked
them, so we get to more of a
fixed and mutually binding
commitment,” Jepsen said.
“We are working with
scenarios where we would be
willing to accept a financial
penalty if we failed to deliver
a slot we had promised.”
“The scheme referred to
by my colleague in the UK is
not something that has been
developed in our market,”
Williams told FTW.
“We do however continue
to work very closely with our
customers (specifically in the
reefer industry, but also with
dry commodity exports) to
ensure we fill our ships on
a port-by-port and week-byweek
basis through constant
communication, accurate
forecasting and the timely
delivery of containers to the
ports for loading.”