In late September 2016, the SA Europe Container Service (Saecs) will be adding another call on Rotterdam to its schedule.
This will make Rotterdam both the first and last port of call on this route.
“After Rotterdam, Saecs ships only make one more stopover, the Spanish port of Algeciras,” said the Port of Rotterdam’s logistics manager, Matthijs van Doorn. “This increases reliability, and both aspects are tremendously important to Germany’s automotive and chemical sectors.”
The new rotation is intended to optimise the network and now includes two port calls for Rotterdam, the first being Uniport - which will be to discharge northbound Europe import cargo; and the second, APM Terminals - which will be to load southbound Europe export cargo.
And, according information released to FTW Online by Arnold Eckersley, communications and marketing manager for Maersk Line in SA, there will be two key benefits of the extra Rotterdam call on the Saecs service.
The northbound benefit will be that transit times from all SA ports into London Gateway will improve by one day. But, as cargo will arrive on the Friday morning, it will allow cargo availability same day (three days earlier than currently)
And the southbound benefit is that transit times from Rotterdam into SA will be reduced by approximately five days. Under the new schedule, it will take Saecs vessels a mere 18 days to travel to Cape Town.
