Maersk Inc. North America will start a new service in May linking ports in Vietnam and China with the U.S. East Coast through the Panama Canal.
The TP23 string will include eight Maersk vessels and two from ZIM. The rotation is intended to include Vung Tau, Vietnam, and Yantian, South China, through the Panama Canal to ports in Savannah, Ga., Charleston, S.C., and Newark, N.J.
The service is meant to improve speed, reliability and coverage and integrate into U.S. East Coast logistics offerings. Transit times are improved from Yantian to Savannah by three to four days to 28 to 29 days, and Yantian to Charleston by seven to eight days to 28 to 29 days over existing services. The Vietnam call has been added to provide more capacity to the rapidly growing market that has seen gains of 52 percent and 25 percent the past two years.
“Importers are looking for more U.S. East Coast gateways in their Asia-North America supply chains, while exporters are looking for more equipment, especially in the Southeast U.S. region,” Narin Phol, managing director of Maersk North America, said. “The TP23 service will enable us to address these needs while integrating our warehousing and distribution network.”
The evolution of the TP23 Service reflects Maersk’s 2020 approach to serve the Transpacific to U.S. East Coast cargo surges via additional capacity through service upgrades, extra loaders and added loadings on the Asia-Europe network. The TP23 will now become a structured, stable, weekly service in 2021 with greater reliability, Maersk said.
The ocean freight carrier said the new TP23 service highlights the innovative solutions Maersk made in 2020 to stay agile for customers facing economic and pandemic cycles. This includes deploying 48 percent extra capacity year-on-year in the Transpacific trade.
“The goal in 2021 is to build on this momentum and enable customers to grow their business with an integrated ocean-port-warehouse-trucking model to attain supply chain efficiency,” Phol added.