SHIPPING lines in the Oceania Vessel Sharing Agreement - Hamburg Sud, Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk - have announced plans to upgrade their services linking the west coast of North America to Australia and New Zealand.
As a result, the Pacific Southwest String (PSW) will deploy six 2,500-TEU vessels, replacing smaller ships to better handle expanding volumes on the trade.
The weekly rotation will be: Oakland, Long Beach, Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Tauranga, Suva, Honolulu (monthly) and Oakland.
The fortnightly PNW rotation will call at: Oakland, Seattle, Vancouver, Long Beach, Tauranga, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Auckland, Papeete (Tahiti) and Ensenada, (Mexico) before returning to Oakland.
The new structure is intended to shorten southbound transit times, so that Long Beach to New Zealand will take 13 days and 18 days to Melbourne. The addition of Adelaide to the PNW rotation will establish a direct service to and from North America's Pacific Coast.
Changes will take effect from the southbound PSW sailing of the Cap Delgado departing from Oakland on July 19 and July 20 with the departure of the Santa Federica from Seattle on the PNW rotation, a statement issued on behalf of Oceania VSA members said.
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