Six ships will be added to A.P. Moller - Maersk's new route network between Asia and Europe, the Danish conglomerate announced new changes to its services connecting Asia and Europe.
Changes implemented in the second quarter of 2018 have improved the reliability of company’s schedules. However, port congestions and unfavorable weather conditions have resulted in delays.
“We are now progressing on the improvements made earlier in 2018 to further enhance our schedule reliability across our Asia-Europe Network”, Danish shipping giant said in its press release.
“To meet our customer’s increasing need for reliable cargo delivery, we have reviewed our service network and identified additional time to recover from the potential delays we continue to face from bad weather and other external factors. I am confident that these service changes will improve our overall schedule reliability, and I look forward to service our customers with this upgraded product,” says Johan Sigsgaard, Head of Europe Trade, A.P. Moller - Maersk.
Operating the industry’s most comprehensive Asia-Europe Network, Maersk will enable extra operational buffer time from a net reduction of eight (8) port calls in the network. The reductions are achieved with minimal impact to product offerings – through combining duplicate calls and competitive transshipment options. This will result in significantly improved schedule reliability, enabled by slightly prolonged, yet competitive transit times.
Further, a total of six extra vessels are added across the ten service strings in the network, with weekly deployed capacity remaining unchanged due to slower vessel speeds.
Westbound sailings are scheduled to start in March 2019.