‘On time’ shipping

One of the world’s major shipping lines has announced a new service from Asia to Europe which will ‘guarantee’ a sailing every day at the same time, with a guaranteed arrival time.   From next month, the service will operate as a giant ocean conveyor belt, and will compensate customers if containers are not delivered as promised.

Until now, customers have not been able to trust that their cargo would arrive on time: this new system is designed to change shipping from the weakest to the strongest link in the supply chain.

70 vessels will operate a daily service between four ports in Asia (Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian and Tanjung Pelepas) and three in Europe (Felixstowe, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven); regardless at which of the four Asian ports the cargo is loaded, transit time from cut-off to cargo availability time in Europe is fixed.