MAERSK SEALAND RESTRUCTURES ATLANTIC, WEST COAST SOUTH AMERICA LINK

MAERSK SEALAND RESTRUCTURES ATLANTIC, WEST COAST SOUTH AMERICA LINK    Maersk Sealand will replace its former TA3 U.S. West Coast/U.S. East Coast/north Europe transatlantic service by a new U.S. East Coast/north Europe operation that utilizes smaller ships and extends to the West Coast of South America.
   As previously announced, the Danish carrier had decided to cut capacity in the Atlantic because of unremunerative freight rates.
   The new TA3 service will use ships with a capacity of 2,800 to 3,000 TEUs, instead of the former 4,400-TEU “M-class” Panamax vessels.
   The service will now also omit transatlantic eastbound calls at Oakland, Los Angeles, Manzanillo (Mexico), Charleston and New York, and will no longer calls westbound at Halifax, Charleston, Manzanillo (Mexico), Los Angeles and Oakland.
   Instead, ships in the transatlantic link will call at ports on the West Coast of South America.
   Maersk Sealand said that the revised service will utilize seven ships, with a rotation of San Antonio (Chile), Balboa, Manzanillo (Panama), Miami, Le Havre, Felixstowe, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, New York, Norfolk, Miami, Manzanillo, Balboa and San Antonio.
   Cuts in U.S. ports call and the incorporation of South American ports in the rotation of the transatlantic service will be seen as an effort by Maersk Sealand to compensate for low eastbound transatlantic freight rates and insufficient volumes in the U.S.-to-Europe container trade.
   It is not clear whether APL, Hyundai Merchant Marine and MOL, which had space on the Maersk Sealand TA3 service, will continue to take slots on the service. APL said that it was reviewing its position.
   In the transatlantic trade, Maersk Sealand, APL, Hyundai Merchant Marine and MOL share space on two weekly services, called TA2 and APX.
   The transit times of the revised TA3 service of Maersk Sealand are posted on the global liner shipping database ComPairData at www.compairdata.com .