MSC brings on dedicated Europe service

Terry Hutson MEDITERRANEAN SHIPPING Company (MSC) has reorganised its services between South Africa and Europe, Australia and the Indian Ocean Islands effective this month in the interests of schedule integrity. “We’re doing this to re-establish the integrity of our named day services which during the past 5-6 months have been completely disrupted by congestion in the South African ports,” Captain Salvatore Sarno, managing director of MSC in SA, told FTW this week. MSC vessels employed on the Europe-SA service will no longer proceed to Australian ports, returning via South Africa. Instead, the new service provides a dedicated Europe-SA-Europe service and a separate service between SA and Australia, with the latter including several Indian Ocean Islands, and in the process providing a named day service to the islands for the first time. The new Europe-SA dedicated fixed day weekly service from major European ports now deploys seven vessels on a port rotation of Felixstowe, one German port, Antwerp, Le Havre, Las Palmas, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and back to Europe. “We have excellent connections at Las Palmas for Mediterranean cargo and greater schedule integrity will be achieved through lower transit volumes in Durban and additional flexibility allowed in the schedule,” said Sarno. The vessels will arrive at Cape Town every Sunday and Port Elizabeth every Tuesday picking up containers for a new dedicated Indian Ocean Islands/Australia direct service from Durban.