Maersk cuts sailing time to US east coast

By PAM GRAHAM

Maersk Sealand is reinforcing its commitment to the New Zealand market with a faster service to the United States east coast.

The Danish operator of the world's largest container shipping fleet said yesterday that it was cutting Los Angeles from the route and replacing chartered vessels with its own to cut transit times and increase capacity.

It will join a vessel-sharing agreement already operated by P&O Nedlloyd, ANZDL, Columbus and Fesco to serve the US west coast.

Maersk will run the Jens Maersk, Josephine Maersk, Nystead Maersk and Nexoe Maersk on the Oceania service to the US east coast. It calls at New Plymouth, Timaru and Tauranga.

The line previously operated five vessels, three of which were chartered. Three days have been cut from the time it takes exports to reach Philadelphia, while imports will take 21 days instead of 32.

"I think that is a commitment to the market that we are putting our own hardware in here and offering an improved product," said Flemming Gamst, the company's New Zealand managing director.

The company with seven pointed white stars on its vessels - denoting, it is said, either the seven seas or seven days in the week - expanded into New Zealand in 1996, offering a route to a relay hub at the port of Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia.

Its selling point was a fixed-day schedule, new 12m-high refrigerated containers, a global network, a conservative service culture and willingness to call where the customers wanted.

Since then, P&O Nedlloyd, the Dutch-British joint venture with a huge fleet, has introduced a fixed-day service to Europe using ships that carry twice as many containers as those operated by Maersk and MSC, a fast-growing line owned by an Italian businessman, and has routed all its vessels calling at Australia to New Zealand.

"It's a global business and we are certainly in New Zealand to stay," said Gamst.

Maersk employs 68 staff in New Zealand and has no plans to work with MSC as it does in other markets.