Matson launching twice monthly container service to Tahiti

The Honolulu-based ocean carrier will begin accepting Tahiti shipments with a vessel departure from Honolulu on Aug. 22 and the first arrival at Tahiti’s capital city on Sept. 4.    Hawaii-based Pacific Ocean carrier Matson, Inc. is introducing a new extension of its South Pacific Express service, providing twice monthly arrivals from the U.S. mainland and Honolulu to the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the company announced in a statement Monday.
   Matson said it would begin accepting Tahiti shipments with the departure of Samoana Voyage 007 from Honolulu on Aug. 22, and the first arrival at Tahiti’s capital city of Papeete on Sept. 4.
   The new Tahiti service will leverage Matson’s existing U.S. West Coast network, serving three major ports, Long Beach, Oakland and Seattle, the company said. Dedicated terminal operations at the three ports, as well as Hawaii, is expected to afford customers the advantage of late cut-offs within hours of vessel departure times, as well as use of Matson’s extensive owned chassis inventory throughout the U.S.
   With the addition of Papeete, Tahiti as a port of call, Matson now provides export shipping from the United States and Hawaii to many of the major Polynesian islands, including Fiji, Samoa, American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Niue and New Zealand.
   Matson has appointed Papeete Seairland Transports, a company with an accomplished history in the French Polynesian shipping industry, as its exclusive agent in Tahiti.
   “This new service allows Matson to leverage existing operations in the region to offer market-leading service to a new destination,” Matson Senior Vice President – Pacific Vic Angoco said. “The people of Tahiti and Hawaii have enjoyed a long and rich history together with shared ethnic and cultural ties. We look forward to strengthening ties between our island communities.”
   The news of the new Tahiti service comes less than two weeks after Matson announced that it was launching a new biweekly service that’s scheduled to call at three Marshall Islands ports — Kwajalein, Ebeye and Majuro — beginning in the first quarter of 2018.