Capacity constraints on the Pacific trade routes as well as Southern California’s ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach have resulted in substantial cargo delays. The latest service from Maersk - in partnership with Zim and MSC - is aimed at circumventing these constraints by heading to the US East Coast via the Panama Canal.
Starting in May this year, the Danish and Israeli operators will deploy ten ships -eight vessels from Maersk and two from Zim - all of around 6,500TEU to the service. MSC will be a non-vessel operating partner. The joint service is labelled the TP23; it will operate from Vietnam and China heading to the US East Coast.
“The TP23 rotation is intended to be Vung Tau, Vietnam/Yantian, South China/Panama Canal/Savannah /Charleston/Newark, while due to congestion in Savannah, the rotation will initially and until further notice swap the US calls to go Charleston/Savannah/Newark,” said the carrier.
Maritimegateway.com reports that the new service is intended to improve speed, reliability and coverage and integrate into US East Coast landside logistics service networks, pointed out Maersk.
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