Safmarine slots into East Africa deal

SAFMARINE HAS diarised an April launch for a new weekly Southern Africa-East Africa service in a vessel-sharing agreement with Unicorn Lines. The three vessel fleet will provide a named-day service, interlinking Mozambique and SA with the Indian Ocean Service to the Middle East, Pakistan and India. The port rotation is: Durban, Maputo, Beira, Nacala, Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Beira, Durban. The service will also be interlinked to two other new East Africa services in Safmarine"s product offering. These are the East Africa leg of a Europe-Middle East-East Africa trade, and the line"s new Indian Ocean Service. The latter will be a named-day, weekly service - provided by four Safmarine-operated vessels - and will link Pakistan-India-Middle East-East Africa. The new service will also provide connections to destinations through the East Africa Express - a grouping from which the line announced its withdrawal last year. Said Safmarine"s trades executive Rudi Labeau: "The key benefits in the new services will be the wide geographical coverage, fast transit times and named-day weekly calls on the three services." The interlinking of the three new services, and to other global offerings from Safmarine, will be of special interest to multi-trade shippers, Labeau added.