Maersk Line, the world's largest liner shipping company, has added the Port of Hamburg in Germany to the port rotation of its Maersk AE-6 service, serving Asia and the US west coast.
From Hamburg, the route of the voyage is initially towards Asia and then onwards to the US, with calls also made at Felixstowe, Le Havre, the Suez Canal, Salalah, Tanjung Pelepas, Vung Tau, Nansha, Yantian, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Ningbo, Shanghai, Xiamen, Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas, Algeciras, Bremerhaven and Hamburg.
On 24 March, the Mathilde Maersk berthed at the Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg as the first vessel on the new service to call at the German port.
In 2011, the Port of Hamburg's total container throughput on the two trade routes of East Asia and North America was able to achieve disproportionately strong growth. Services between Hamburg and the US reported the steepest increase with growth of 81 per cent to 297,000 TEU.
