Freight News, Rail, Sea

Daily departures for Maersk sea-rail service?

[ November 12, 2020   //   Chris ]

Maersk is increasing the frequency of its AE19 rail-sea service between Asia and North Europe to twice-weekly, adding that it plans to scale it up to daily if demand continues at its current rate.

AE19 is a combination of a short-sea and intercontinental rail between ports in Korea, China and Japan and ports in Finland, Poland, Germany and Scandinavia, operating in both directions for dry, refrigerated and dangerous cargo. It runs via the port of Vostochny in the Russian Far East, followed by an intercontinental rail connection across Russia from Nakhodka to St. Petersburg, which takes 11 days. The last leg of the product is another short-sea connection between St. Petersburg and ports in Finland (Helsinki and Rauma), continental Europe, such as Gdansk (Poland), Bremerhaven (Germany), or Scandinavia.
Managing director, Eastern Europe, Zsolt Katona explained: “The pandemic has triggered some trade bottlenecks in Europe that we can help solve by offering to our customers higher levels of supply chain management, for example by further developing rail into a cost efficient, reliable and scalable mode of transport between continents, creating fall back options which seems to be crucial in crisis situations.”

Maersk says that competitive prices and faster transit times have increased bookings on the service, boosting volumes by 75% in April, May and June compared to pre-Covid-19, “a trend that will likely improve in the second half of the year,” points out Zsolt.
AE19 is supported by the Maersk-IBM TradeLens digital, which provides shipping data in near real-time.

Tags: Maersk