Maersk Line, the world’s largest containerized cargo carrier, has provided Philippine shippers uninterrupted service to Europe and other ports in Asia with the introduction of a new service. Dubbed as Daily Maersk, the service offers daily cut-offs from different strategic ports in Asia and fixed transportation time providing unprecedented frequency and absolute reliability.
In a statement Maersk Line Philippines explained that while cut-off in different ports in the country remains once a week, customers will enjoy improved transportation time in general.
In the Philippines, Maersk Line calls at the ports of Manila, Davao, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro and General Santos and connect it to North Europe via Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia.
Daily Maersk, meanwhile, offers daily cut-offs from the four ports in Asia such as Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian and Tanjung Pelepas and fixed transportation time.
The new service promises a fixed cargo availability date based on the agreed cut-off from Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian and Tanjung Pelepas in Asia to Felixstowe, Bremerhaven and Rotterdam in North Europe. Maersk Line also has added extra capacity to the Asia-North Europe corridor to make sure cargo is always available on time at its final destination.
Before Daily Maersk, a typical voyage from Tanjung Pelepas to Rotterdam lasted 20 days. Add to that approximately 7 days inventory buffer for weekly departures, then add a further buffer for lack of service reliability plus the time from cut-off to load and the time from discharge to cargo is available for pick up while Daily Maersk offers a total transportation time of 26 days for the same journey every time.
This is definitely new to the industry, but it results in filling up the vessel in port, freeing up space on the planned vessel – and making the cargo available for the customer more than a week before promised. That is, if the customer wishes to pick it up before – otherwise Maersk Line ‘just’ delivers it on time.
“We set out to design a service that takes the stress out of our customers’ lives, to change shipping from the weakest to the strongest link in the supply chain. After all, shipping is only around two percent of our customers’ total cost. And yet our unreliability has until now forced them to shape their production plans and inventory around it,” says Maersk Line CEO, Eivind Kolding.
Today, shipping creates anxiety, not boredom. As a general rule, shipping lines serving the Asia – North Europe trade are unreliable, in effect providing customers with an uncontrollable conveyor belt. 44% of all containers are late. 11% are more than two days late – and even as much as 8% are more than eight days late.