MSC has extended its lead at the top of the carrier rankings, with its current fleet reaching 5.36m teu, up from 4.61m teu at the beginning of January. Newbuilding deliveries contributed 557,000 teu to the increase, with the rest coming from second hand vessel acquisitions and new charters. MSC has grown at an average rate of 83,000 teu a month, with its lead over 2nd place Maersk rising to 1.24m teu. Maersk has seen its operated fleet shrink from 4.21m teu at the beginning of the year to 4.12
Zim has withdrawn its Zim Med ISC (ZMI) service from September 2023, with the last sailing departing from Haifa on 2 September 2023. The ZMI service called at Haifa, Aliaga, Valencia, Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Le Havre, Ashdod, Limassol,Haifa,Colombo,Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Haifa turning in 5 weeks with 5 ships of 3,500-6,800 teu operated independently by Zim. Zim will replace the ZMI with slots on 3 MSC services covering 3 separate corridors that were previously served by the ZMI:
MSC and Zim have announced on 6 September 2023 a new operational cooperation agreement covering the trades between the Indian subcontinent with the East Mediterranean, the East Mediterranean with Northern Europe, and services connecting East Asia with Oceania. The cooperation is expected to be expanded when the current 2M-Zim collaboration is dissolved from January 2025, with MSC poised to further extend its current slot sale agreement with Zim on the Asia-PNW route to cover the Asia-US East Coa
MSC has added a Mex Gulf to Central America service through slots on Zim's Central America Gulf Xpress (CGX) that calls at Kingston, Houston, Altamira, Kingston, Moin, Santo Tomas de Castilla, Puerto Cortes, Kingston using 3 ships of 900-1,100 teu. The move follows the announcement of Zim's new operational collaboration agreement with MSC on trades connecting the Indian subcontinent with the East Mediterranean, the East Mediterranean with Northern Europe, and services connecting East Asia with
MSC has launched a new Zambezi Express service that connects Port Louis and Beira using the 3,301 teu MSC ALEXA and 2,764 teu MSC PATNAREE III. The service started from 16 August 2023 and turns in 12-14 days with the 2 ships providing weekly departures from Mauritius and Mozambique.
Zim will join MSC on the North Europe-Israel trade by contributing two out of the 5 ships on the revised Zim North Europe Israel (ZNI)/Israel Express service from the end of August 2023. The service will call at Ashdod, Haifa, Damietta, Valencia, London Gateway, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Le Havre, Ashdod with the 7,403 teu KURE, 6,724 teu MSC LORETTA from MSC 5,550 teu MSC VIGO that will be joined by the 6,881 teu ZIM ALABAMA and 6,644 teu ZIM VIETNAM. This is the 3rd trade in which Zim and
MSC and Zim will jointly operate the enhanced Panda/Zim Northeast Asia-Australia (ZAX) service from 18 October 2023 following the withdrawal of Zim's own China-Australia Express (CAX) service. The Panda/ZAX will call at Nansha, Hong Kong, Yantian, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Busan, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Nansha, Hong Kong, Yantian, Nansha using 7 ships of 5,000 teu of which 4 will be operated by MSC and 3 will be from Zim. Revised rotation of the new Panda/ZAX service from Octob
MSC will revise the Asia-US West Coast Sentosa service rotation for the 3rd time this year with calls at Port Klang, Singapore and Busan reinstated together with an extension of the service to India. The revised service is renamed as Sentosa Shikra as it incorporates the existing FE-India Shikra service. The Sentosa service was first launched in April 2021 and has gone through 6 major iterations: * April 2021 to September 2022 - originally focused on the Southeast Asia market calling at Si
Zim will withdraw its ships from the Asia-Oceania trade and replace them with slots on MSC's enhanced Oceania services suite from October 2023. The move will affect 14 ships of 1,100 teu to 2,800 teu that Zim currently employs on 3 services on this route. Zim's existing China-Australia Express (CAX) service will be replaced by slots on MSC's Panda service that calls at Busan, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Yantian, Nansha, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Busan. Zim's current Thai
MSC will revise the rotation of the FE-USEC Santana service from 24 August 2023 to call at Laem Chabang, Cai Mep, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Manzanillo, Cristobal, Caucedo, New York, Norfolk, Laem Chabang. The addition of new calls at Manzanillo and Cristobal allows MSC to offload cargo before the Panama Canal transit due to draft restrictions imposed by the ACP. The revision comes just 11 weeks after the Santana rotation was last changed on 8 June 2023 to call at Haiphong, Shanghai, Ningbo, Bus