MSC has launched a new West Med to Red Sea service connecting Barcelona, Gioia Tauro, Mersin, Jeddah, King Abdullah Port, Port Said, Barcelona. The service turns in 3 to 4 weeks and will deploy up to 6 ships of 4,800-6,800 teu with the first sailing by the 6,724 teu MSC MELISSA on 14 January 2024.
MSC has launched a new Djibouti service connecting Colombo, Djibouti, Aden, Colombo from 23 January 2024. The service will turn in 2 weeks and deploys 2 ships - the 4,056 teu MSC GINA and 3,424 teu MSC ROSSELLA.
MSC has launched a new Malacca service connecting Singapore, Belawan, Singapore with the 2,113 teu MSC JANIS 3 from 6 February 2024. The weekly feeder service will turn in 7 days using a single ship.
MSC has launched a new Ecuador-NWC & Scan Baltic-USA service that merges it existing Ecuador to NWC service with the Scan Baltic to USA service. The new service calls at Klaipeda, Gdynia, Gothenburg, Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Antwerp, Le Havre, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Freeport (Bahamas), Balboa, Guayaquil, Puerto Bolívar, Guayaquil, Cristobal, Moín, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Klaipeda and has started from 6 January 2024 from Klaipeda with the 8,819 teu MSC VI
MSC has introduced a new Red Sea Express service that connects Tekirdag, Derince, Mersin, King Abdullah Port, Jeddah, Aqaba, Tekirdag from 31 December 2023 with the 4,872 teu MSC CARMEN. The service will provide connections to the Red Sea ports in Saudi Arabia and Jordan that are currently restricted.
MSC has upgraded its FE-US West Coast Jaguar service to the 19,000 teu scale with ships that have been redeployed from the Asia-Europe routes due to their Israeli links. The Jaguar service calls at Nansha, Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai, Long Beach, Busan, Nansha and used ships of 13,000 to 19,000 teu previously. Since the Hamas-Israel conflict started in October and attacks on vessel traffic on the Red Sea has escalated in recent weeks, MSC has shifted 6 ships of 16,500-19,500 teu owned by Zodiac
Ellerman will purchase 300 teu per week on MSC's Scan Baltic to USA service on a roundtrip basis starting from 6 January 2024. The service calls at Klaipeda, Gdynia, Gothenburg, Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Antwerp, Le Havre, New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Klaipeda. Ellerman will have a maximum allocation of 120 teu per week from Scandinavian ports to USA. The slot arrangement on MSC will replace Ellerman's USA Express (USX) service that calls at Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Tilbury
MSC has launched a new Torogoz Feeder service connecting Balboa, Acajutla, Puerto Quetzal, Balboa using the 1,878 teu MSC DIAMOND II. The service has been in operation since July 2023, and operates on a 2-3 week rotation on an irregular frequency.
MSC will revise the port rotation of the Far East-US East Coast Santana service from 2 December 2023 to call at Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao, Busan, Manzanillo, Cristobal, Caucedo, New York, Yantian. The revised service will turn in 11 weeks on a 77 day rotation and will deploy up to 11 neo-panamax ships of 13,000-15,000 teu. The new rotation will omit previous calls at Laem Chabang, Cai Mep and Norfolk while adding a new call at Yantian.
Hapag-Lloyd will receive next month the first of 9 ships of 14,372 teu that it has chartered from SFL and Enesel for 5 year periods in the first benchmark fixture for ships of this size following the expiry of their initial 10 year charter to Evergreen. The first 2 ships (THALASSA HELLAS and THALASSA PATRIS) are currently undergoing upgrades at COSCO Zhoushan including raised lashing bridges that will increase their nominal capacity from 13,808 teu to 14,372 teu. They will join the FE-US East