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HAPAG-LLOYD announced it will switch three of its transatlantic services from Thamesport to Southampton in another blow to the Hutchison Whampoa-owned port.
The German container carrier, the world's six largest, said the move was made "to further improve schedule reliability and offer the best possible service".
The carrier said it would move its North America-Europe Gulf Atlantic Express (GAX) and Gulf Mexico Express (GMX) services and its Latin America/North America-Europe Pacific Atlantic Express (PAX) service to Southampton in October.
Hapag-Lloyd, along with partners Zim and MOL, stopped calling at Thamesport with their Africa-Europe WAX/NAF/ARN service in July in favour of only calling at Antwerp and Hamburg in Europe.
According to the Thamesport website, other than Hapag-Lloyd, the port also handles calls from MacAndrews and BG Freight Line.
BG Freight Line said it had no plans to switch its Thamesport service to another port and its chief executive Koert Luitwieler said it had only launched its service to Thamesport a month ago and in fact the move by Hapag-Lloyd could boost the volumes it carries there. He said many shippers would still require services to Thamesport and would turn to feeder and short sea operators such as BG Freight Line in order to meet this need.
According to Lloyd's List Intelligence, Hapag-Lloyd partners with NYK Line and OOCL on the GAX and PAX services as part of the Grand Alliance, while it partners with OOCL on the GMX service.
The move follows a series of port changes in the UK as a range of new box port capacity comes on stream and carrier alliances appear to be consolidating services at fewer ports.
Thamesport and Tilbury Docks are both located close to DP World's London Gateway, which will open before the end of the year and will provide intense competition for both ports.
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