The Hamburg shipping company Hapag-Lloyd christened its container vessel, the Guayaquil Express, on 16 June at the HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA). Olaf Scholz, the First Mayor of Hamburg; Rolf Habben Jansen, Chairman of the Executive Board of Hapag-Lloyd AG; Angela Titzrath, Chairwoman of HHLA’s Executive Board, Peer Witten, Chairman of the HHLA Supervisory Board, and many other high-profile visitors took part in the christening ceremony. The vessel was launched by Christine Kühne, the wife of Klaus-Michael Kühne, the Honorary Chairman of Kühne + Nagel International AG.
The Guayaquil Express is the fourth out of five vessels in the 10,500-TEU class christened by Hapag-Lloyd. It was built in South Korea and will operate between Europe and South America. Measuring 333 m long and 48 m wide, the ship was designed to navigate the new lock in the Panama Canal. It meets the highest standards in environmental protection and has particularly low consumption and emission figures as a result of innovative technologies on board.
The ship class of the Guayaquil Express is equipped with over 2,100 storage spaces for reefer containers, which transport perishable products such as fruit, meat or pharmaceutical products. These goods are exported in large numbers from Latin America. The Guayaquil Express will be used for the SWX Service and, in addition to its home port of Hamburg, will also call at Antwerp, Le Havre, Punta Caucedo, Cartagena, Manzanillo, Buenaventura, Callao, Puerto Angamos and Valparaíso.