COSCO Shipping Lines and MSC have each taken out a ship from their Transatlantic services to feeder containers between North Europe and the Mediterranean, as the diversions from the Red Sea to the Cape of Good Hope have held up vessel arrivals in the Mediterranean.
COSCO’s subsidiary OOCL has substituted the 13,092 TEU COSCO Development with 8,063 TEU OOCL Seoul in Ocean Alliance’s Transatlantic service, Trans-Atlantic Express, with COSCO taking the larger ship to carry out ad hoc ‘feeder’ between Zeebrugge and Piraeus ports.
Piraeus is usually the first European discharge port for the ultra large container ships that serve Ocean Alliance’s Far East-Europe AEU3 service.
The Trans-Atlantic Express service turns in six weeks with four 8,000 – 9,450 TEU ships and two neo-Panamax vessels, calling at Southampton, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Le Havre, Newark (New York), Norfolk, Savannah, Charleston, Southampton.
Since the AEU3 service has been rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope, Zeebrugge has temporarily been added to the rotation of some sailings as the first European port of discharge.
According to Alphaliner, containers bound for Piraeus are offloaded at the terminal operated by COSCO Shipping Ports (CSP Zeebrugge Terminal) for their ‘feeder’ voyage to Greece.
MSC has taken out the 13,092 TEU MSC Benedetta XIII from its solo Far East-North Europe ‘Swan’ service to perform ad hoc trips from Antwerp to the Turkish ports of Gebze and Tekirdag.