Maersk adds Marseilles to Med-Mideast loop

The Western Mediterranean-Middle East ME2 service is the second new call to the French port of Marseilles Fos by Maersk in as many weeks.

   Maersk Line is adding its second new call to the Port of Marseilles Fos in as many weeks, according to the Danish ocean carrier’s latest online sailing schedules.
   Maersk will add a call to the French Mediterranean port to its Western Mediterranean-Middle East ME2 service starting with the July 10 sailing of the Maersk Sebarok from the port’s Seayard terminal.
   According to ocean carrier schedule and capacity database BlueWater Reporting, the ME2 is currently operated with seven Maersk ships with an average capacity of 7,239 TEUs.
   The call to Marseilles will replace a previous call to Barcelona, leaving a revised port rotation of Malta, Tangier, Algeciras, Valencia, Marseilles, Genoa, Port Said, Jeddah, Salalah, Dubai Jebel Ali, Dammam, Jubail, Abu Dhabi, Dubai Jebel Ali, Salalah, Jeddah, Port Said and back to Malta.
   The news follows Maersk’s recent announcement it would launch a dedicated Mediterranean-to-Canada loop that also will call at Marseilles.
   “France is a strategic market for us because its know-how is exported to all four corners of the globe,” Vincent Clerc, Maersk Line’s global commercial director, said at a meeting between the carrier and port to finalize the move. “That’s why we have expanded our offer from Marseille Fos following customer demand and with the port authority’s assistance.”
    Added Claus Ellemann-Jensen, chairman and managing director of Maersk Line France, “We are back in the South of France. As a global integrator of logistics solutions, we aim to facilitate the development of our customers by opening up key markets for their activities.”
   Marseilles port CEO Christine Cabau Woehrel said the news comes at “the right time to underline the dynamic growth of the Fos container terminals — up 10 percent in 2017, the sixth-consecutive year of increase. The support and confidence of the Maersk Group with the almost simultaneous arrival of two new services is also a strong sign for our growth in 2018 and proves the effectiveness of our offer.”