Crowley Maritime Corporation’s liner services group and Seaboard Marine Ltd. announced today that they have entered a new vessel sharing agreement (VSA) to service customers in the Dominican Republic trade lane, while also changing their current VSA to Panama and Costa Rica.
The new VSA, which commences mid-November, will provide customers of both companies with reliable, weekly service on a larger ship moving directly between Port Everglades, Fla., and Rio Haina, Dominican Republic.
Concurrently, the existing VSA between Seaboard and Crowley to Panama and Costa Rica will now call only PortMiami starting in mid-November. Both Seaboard and Crowley vessels will arrive weekly at PortMiami on Tuesday evening and sail southbound on Fridays.
By sharing vessel space, Crowley and Seaboard can continue to provide a high level of service through more efficient operations, while at the same time reducing carbon emissions in these trade lanes.
“The cooperation between Crowley and Seaboard in both the Dominican Republic and Panama/Costa Rica trade lanes will allow both companies to continue providing exceptional service at competitive rates in the ever-changing Caribbean and Central American markets,” said Tony Otero, Crowley vice president, Caribbean services. “It also reduces certain environmental impacts by significantly removing additional emissions.”
“These two arrangements permit us to gain efficiencies while enhancing schedule integrity to our customers. Transit times to and from Costa Rica, as an example, will be improved,” said Edward Gonzalez, Seaboard Marine president and CEO. “We are also pleased that we can reduce our carbon footprint by making these changes.”
Under the new Dominican Republic agreement, a vessel will discharge and load in Port Everglades each week on Wednesday then depart for Rio Haina, for arrival on Saturday before departing northbound on Sunday. While Crowley and Seaboard will equally share vessel space, each carrier will continue to provide its full complement of equipment types and other services utilized by their Dominican Republic customers respectively.
Seaboard will continue to offer a weekly Sunday sailing from PortMiami to Rio Haina while Crowley will still sail weekly on Sunday from Port Everglades to Rio Haina.