Feature, Sea

Southampton gets its retaliation in first

[ November 5, 2013   //   Chris ]

Not to be outdone by its sister port, London Gateway, Southampton marked the start of three new transatlantic services with the inaugural call of Hapag-Lloyd’s Kobe Express on 5 November, just two days before its new rival within the DP World group was due to open. The south coast terminal will now receive three additional weekly sailings from the Grand Alliance on the America-Europe trade: The Gulf Atlantic Express (GAX), the Gulf Mexico Express (GMX) services and the Pacific Atlantic Express (PAX, which also connects with Asia and the US West Coast). This is in addition to the existing weekly North Atlantic Express service ATX of the Grand Alliance which has been calling at Southampton for many years.

The Grand Alliance said that moving the three Transatlantic services to the south coast port would further improve schedule reliability.

Southampton says that its average shipside container moves per hour are significantly higher than its nearest UK rival and it moves 36% of inland containers by rail, a higher modal share than any other UK terminal.

Earlier this year Southampton secured calls from the G6 Alliance ‘Loop 5’, connecting Southampton with South Korea and China, as well as from CMA CGM’s FEMEX service, connecting Southampton with Turkey, Greece and Morocco.

DP World’s landlord ABP is investing £150m in a new 500m long deep berth due to open in early 2014 to cater for the next generation container vessels, four additional super post panamax cranes and an extensive dredging program.

Tags: DP World, Grand Alliance, Hapag-Lloyd, Soutmpton