West-Afrika Linien to continue Europe/West Africa link despite P&ONL withdrawal
The German shipping line West-Afrika Linien, a member of the Rantzau group, said that it will continue operations in the Europe/West Africa market despite “the unexpected withdrawal” of its joint service partner P&O Nedlloyd from the trade.
“Measures will be taken to maintain or even improve the service quality in future,” the carrier said in a statement to its customers.
Last week, P&O Nedlloyd announced its decision to cease trading in the Europe/West Africa trade by the end of November, a move which it said would see the end of the joint “Eurowas” service with West-Afrika Linien. Contrary to the P&O Nedlloyd announcement, West-Afrika Linien said that it will continue the charter of the two 1,730-TEU
ships “WAL Ulanga” and “WAL Urundi.”
Currently, the “Eurowas” service uses four ships of about 1,730 TEUs with a sailing frequency of every 10 days, and calls Hamburg; Antwerp; Felixstowe; Le Havre; Bilbao; Lisbon; Dakar; Conakry; Abidjan; Tema; Lagos; Takoradi; Abidjan; San Pedro and back to Hamburg.
West-Afrika Linien said that full details of the revised service will be announced in due course.