Maersk introduced changes to its Asia-Europe network in May 2018, which enabled it to regain a market leading position on schedule reliability. Building on those positive developments, Maersk is now making further adjustments to the network, safeguarding schedules to meet customer needs throughout Asia, North Europe and the Mediterranean, the company said in its release.
Operating the industry’s most comprehensive Asia-Europe network, Maersk will enable extra operational buffer time from a net reduction of four port calls in the network. The reductions are achieved with minimal impact to product offerings – through combining duplicate calls and competitive transhipment options. This will result in significantly improved schedule reliability, enabled by slightly prolonged, yet fully competitive transit times.
In addition, a total of six extra vessels are being added across the ten service strings in the network, with weekly deployed capacity remaining unchanged due to slower vessel speeds.
Westbound sailings (from Asia to Europe) are scheduled to start in March 2019.