Maersk Line has announced a raft of changes to its Asia-Europe services, due to come into force during the middle of May onwards, which it says will improve a number of aspects of its service.
The developments will offer more direct port coverage and enhanced product reliability, particularly from Asia to the Adriatic, without cutting Asia-Europe network capacity, the group said.
On the group's Asia-northern Europe strings, it is concentrating the UK services into Felixstowe (AE1 service) and improving the direct coverage between China and Le Havre (AE10 service), Maersk Line said in a statement.
To the Mediterranean, the group will run the AE11 (Asia-Jeddah, Egypt, Italy, France) service in a vessel-sharing agreement with CMA-CGM, while at the same time introducing direct calls from Asia to Trieste and Koper on the AE12 service, also in partnership with CMA-CGM.
'We are very pleased to announce these Asia-Europe service improvements – we believe it displays our commitment to our customers, also in the present volatile trading environment,' said Lee Sissons, director of Asia-Europe services. 'With these changes we are offering a wider range of port calls than ever before.
We do not find it necessary to expand capacity and have therefore entered into a number of vessel-sharing agreements instead of pushing additional tonnage into the market,' he added. 'We believe that our customers will benefit from the service developments in terms of improved transit and wider coverage.'
