Hamburg Sud, Seago Consolidate Europe-Med Services

Hamburg Sud and Seago Line plan to combine three of the services they operate between North Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean into one service with three loops in January.

The two carriers had already started jointly operating those services in August in response to what they called “unfavorable market conditions” in the trade.

They say the combination of their services into one will enable them to provide fast transit times, comprehensive port coverage and facilitate the deployment of larger, cost-efficient vessels.

The three new loops are:

- The Israel Loop will deploy four Seago Line Panamax vessels of 4,200 20-foot equivalent units each on the following port rotation is: Rotterdam, Felixstowe, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Haifa, Alexandria, Ashdod and back to Rotterdam.

– The Levant Loop will be operated with five Hamburg Sud Panamax ships of 4,200 TEUs apiece calling at the following ports: Felixstowe, Antwerp, Hamburg, Tangier, Limassol, Alexandria, Port Said, Beirut, Lattakia, Mersin, Port Said, Algeciras and back to Felixstowe;

- The Inner Med Feeder, which will be operated with the following port rotation: Tangier, Algeciras, Alexandria, Mersin, Port Said, Ashdod, Haifa, Salerno, Valencia and back to Tangier.

Hamburg Sud will continue to operate its own Turkey Service between North Europe and Eastern Mediterranean, which retains the port rotation: Felixstowe, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Gebze, Kumport, Gemlik, Aliaga, Valencia and back to Felixstowe. The two carriers said their new service configuration will connect with the global liner networks of both companies.

-- Contact Peter T. Leach at pleach@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter @petertleach.