Maersk Samba’s faster tempo, adds Antwerp

   After a two-month slowdown, ocean carrier Maersk Line has resumed a seven-week roundtrip voyage time on its Samba service between Europe and the East Coast of South America and added a new call at Antwerp to the rotation.
   American Shipper reported Jan 30 that the loop had slowed to eight weeks, with transit times northbound to Europe and the Mediterranean from East Coast of South America on the Samba increasing by about seven days, taking 23 days between Buenos Aires and Tilbury.
   As reported, the Samba loop also added a call at Antwerp, leaving a revised rotation of Tilbury, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Algeciras, Santos, Paranagua, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio Grande, Itapoa, Santos, Algeciras, and Tilbury. Transit between Buenos Aires and Tilbury northbound has improved to 22 days.
   The service is currently operated with five Maersk vessels and one from subsidiary Safmarine providing an average weekly capacity of 3,473 TEUs. COSCO and Hanjin Shipping continue to purchase slots on the Samba in place of the terminated joint COSCO, Hanjin, United Arab Shipping Company and CCNI North Europe-ECSA service ESE/SAM 1.
   Maersk originally said the Samba slowdown was caused by the introduction of larger 7,500-TEU SAMMAX-class vessels, but so far only one of these, Maersk Laguna, has arrived in the loop and one of Samba’s seven weekly sailing positions is vacant. — ComPair Data, Ben Meyer