Tagged: Atlantic Container Line

Hapag-Lloyd drops Charleston from Transatlantic ‘GMX’ service

Hapag-Lloyd today announced the removal of the Charleston call from its Transatlantic ‘GMX’ service which links Northern Europe with Mexico and the US East- and Gulf Coast. Charleston will be dropped at the end of July.

The suspension is motivated by the need to improve schedule reliability, said the German carrier in a statement. Charleston will last be visited on 29 July by the 3,534 teu LISA SCHULTE. The 3,606 teu NORFOLK EXPRESS thereafter will inaugurate the truncated rotation: Antwerp, Bremerhaven, Le Havre, Veracruz, Altamira, Houston, New Orleans, Thamesport, Antwerp.

Both Hapag-Lloyd and OOCL, which is a slot buyer on the ‘GMX’, continue to cover the port of Charleston through their respective services and slot swap agreements:

  • OOCL’s ‘Atlantic Express’, a fast 28 day service with a 5,892 teu per week capacity: Hamburg-Süd also provides one ship, Hapag-Lloyd is a slot buyer;
  • Hapag-Lloyd’s ‘Gulf Atlantic’, operated by Hapag-Lloyd with five 3,237 vessels: OOCL – alongside NYK – is a slot buyer.

Of note, Atlantic Container Line has also a slot participation on the Gulf Atlantic service.

Following the removal from the ‘GMX’, the port Charleston remains connected to North Europe by eight Transatlantic container liner services.

ATLANTIC CARTIER back in service after fire damage

atlantic cartier

The ‘G3’ class / Credit: ACL

Two months after ACL’s combined roro container vessel ATLANTIC CARTIER suffered an onboard fire in the port of Hamburg, the ship is now almost ready to return back to service and resume sailings on ACL’s north Atlantic conro service. Works on the ship were not carried out at a shipyard, but while the ship was berthed alongside at the terminal where the accident happened.

ACL, a member of the Grimaldi Napoli group of companies, chartered the 3,426 teu CSAV RUNGUE as a temporary replacement for the ATLANTIC CARTIER. Since this ship is a full container vessel without roro capacity, the transatlantic service could continue to offer weekly departures for containerised cargo, but roro and project cargo acceptance had to be suspended on sailings covered by the stand-in charter ship.

g4

The ‘G4’ class, set to replaces the ‘G3’ above / Credit: ACL / Knud E. Hansen A/S

The ATLANTIC CARTIER is one of five near-identical ‘G3’ type container roro ships of ACL. Purpose-built for the north Atlantic trade as 249m ships in 1984 and 1985, the ships were all lengthened to 292m at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in 1987.

With the ships soon to reach 30 years of age, the end of their commercial life is near and ACL placed orders for five replacement ships in August of 2012. At 296m in length and with a beam of 37.30m, this new ‘G4’ class will be the largest-ever type of conro ship. The next-generation ships are scheduled for delivery in 2015 and they will be built at Hudong Zhenhua in China.