[270710.EN.SEA] CMA CGM Ups Capacity On Americas 'Columbus' Service Via Suez

MARSEILLES' shipping giant CMA CGM has announced it is increasing ship size on its butterfly Columbus service it runs with Maersk Line, linking Asia with Pacific Northwest ports on one leg and the US east coast via Suez on the other.

"We have decided to optimise the Columbus service to keep pace with our customer needs while offering a high quality service," said North America vice president Jean-Philippe Thenoz.

"In response to the growing market demand on the Asia-transpacific lines, the fleet was recently homogenised with the introduction of the latest generation 6,250-TEU vessels," said a company statement.

The 6,500-TEU CMA CGM Rabelais recently called at Seattle, replacing a 5,100-TEUer, part of a trend of replacing all smaller ships with larger ones on that service.

"Commercial operations broke a new record at the terminal with more than 4,300 movements of containers, thus confirming the growth registered since the beginning of the year on this market," CMA CGM said.

The port rotation is Seattle, Vancouver, Yokohama, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Yantian, Tanjung Pelapas, Suez Canal, New York, Norfolk, Savannah, Suez Canal, Tanjung Pelapas, Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Yantian, Shanghai, Busan and back to Seattle.

A spokeswoman said the company is also doing a test with an 8,500-TEU vessel in the service, deploying the CMA CGM Figaro, reported American Shipper.

Source : HKSG, 27.07.10.