CMA CGM is upgrading its EPIC service between India, Pakistan, the Middle East and North Europe that directly serves five ports.
This will see a new westbound call at Port Said from March 30 to significantly improve transit times to the eastern Mediterranean, reducing the trip by four days to Lattakia (Syria) and Istanbul (Turkey), six days to Mersin (Turkey) and seven days to Beirut (Lebanon),
A replacement of the Salalah call by Khor Fakkan will be made to liaise with the Mascareignes line serving the Indian Ocean, and the French line will deploy “an efficient and homogeneous fleet” of eight ships with a nominal capacity of 5,700 TEUs each.
CMA CGM will offer customers multiple destinations from the Indian subcontinent to the Middle East and North Europe with calls at major transhipment ports in the Mediterranean:
- Tangiers for West Africa and Latin America,
- Malta for the western Mediterranean,
- Khor Fakkan for the Indian Ocean,
- Port Said for the Adriatic Sea, Black Sea, Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Egypt), Turkey and Greece.
"The addition of a call in Port Said is the main asset of this new service and will significantly reduce our transit times to the eastern Mediterranea,” said Christophe de La Ferrière, senior manager Indian Subcontinent / Europe Lines.
“This new configuration meets the growing demand of our Indian and Pakistani customers exporting agricultural, textile and chemical products, as well as refrigerated goods, to markets in the Middle East, Black Sea and Turkey.”
The new EPIC service rotation, which has been effective since March 19, is: Southampton, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Le Havre, Port Said, Khor Fakkan , Jebel Ali, Port Qasim, Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Jeddah, Port Said, Malta, Tangiers, Southampton.
(Source:http://www.cargonewsasia.com)
