Hamburg Süd Bahia containership

Hamburg Süd has announced that it is responding to changing market conditions by replacing its current Med-Caribbean service through a slot charter agreement with Hapag-Lloyd's MGX service.

The service, which will begin in its new guise on 2 March 2010, will allow an improvement in frequency while maintaining the present coverage of ports in the Mediterranean, the Gulf Coast of Mexico and the Atlantic/Gulf Coast of the US with competitive transit times, the group said.

Operating with six ships with a capacity of 3,200 TEU, the new integrated Mediterranean Mexican Gulf Express will offer a port rotation of Cagliari, Livorno, Genoa, Barcelona, Valencia, Port Everglades, Veracruz, Altamira, Houston, New Orleans, Cagliari.

In a related service enhancement, Hamburg Süd has also changed its Intra-Caribbean network, upgraded to two vessels calling on a weekly fixed-day basis at Cartagena, Puerto Limon, Santo Tomas de Castilla, Kingston, Rio Haina and Cartagena.

Simultaneously, the group is opening a new weekly service connecting the hub in Cartagena with Barranquilla and San Juan, allowing for more complete and comprehensive coverage of the Caribbean Basin.