MSC modifies four Africa services

The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has revised four regional services involving Africa, three of which involve the MSC hub in Salalah in Oman, according to Glenn Delve, marketing director of the line in SA. Two of them also involve SA ports of call, he told FTW. First of these is the service which previously sailed from Salalah to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, but which, because of growing congestion at the MSC hub, will now miss out the Oman port of call. “The first voyage was with the MV Ayola on July 23, with a new port rotation of: Durban-Mombasa-Dar es Salaam-Beira-Durban,” said Delve. Second of the SA services is Ipak, where the call at Salalah has also been dropped, and which has been extended to include the Indian port of Mundra and Port Louis in Mauritius. It had its first sailing with the MSC Carla leaving Durban on July 21, on the port rotation: Durban-Ngqura- Jebel Ali-Mundra-Port Louis-Durban, with five ships utilised and turning in 35 days. The other two adjusted services involve North African and East African ports of call. The Red Sea service will now include additional calls at Mundra, Karachi and Bin Qasim. The new four week service rotation becomes: Mundra, Karachi, Bin Qasim, Salalah, Djibouti, Jeddah, Aqaba, Sokhna, Port Sudan, Mundra with four ships being utilised. MSC’s Middle East-East Africa service – which currently links Dar es Salaam and Mombasa with Salalah – has been extended to include calls at Mundra and Nhava Sheva. This requires the cycles to be extended by one week to four weeks but - by using four ships in the 1 900- to 2 400-TEU range - a namedday weekly service is able to continue. The rotation becomes: Salalah, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Salalah.