Hapag-Lloyd, on Friday, announced that it will launch two new services – South-East India – Europe Express (IEX) and the Middle East-India – Africa Express (MIAX). The announcement was done at an event held in Mumbai.
Both the services will be operational from October 2019. The two services will help India closely connect to North Europe and Africa as well.
Lars Sorenson, managing director of Hapag-Lloyd’s Region India said during the event, “IEX is the first and only direct service from the east and south India to Europe. MIAX offers the fastest transit times in the market between India, and Ghana and Nigeria. We also believe there’s a need to improve connectivity toward Bangladesh which currently is quite challenging.”
The IEX, which is a weekly service, jointly operated with ONE, YML and COSCO, will be made up of nine 6,500 TEU vessels, with Hapag-Lloyd contributing four ships. The first departures are scheduled for October 26.
The MIAX, launching on October 12, will jointly operate with ONE to meet the growing demand from Africa. A total of nine vessels with a capacity of 2,800 TEU each, will serve on this new route, five of which will be provided by Hapag-Lloyd.
“India is a huge market for us. We are extremely pleased to be chosen by Hapag-Lloyd yet again as it reinforces their confidence in our capabilities to add value to trade. We will work closely with Hapag-Lloyd to ensure that customers benefit from our multi-modal logistics capabilities in the country to effectively manage their supply chains,” said Rizwan Soomar, CEO and managing director, DP-World Indian sub-continent; who was also present in the event.
Dheeraj Bhatia, senior managing director of Hapag-Lloyd’s Region Middle East, talking about purchasing low sulphur fuel said, “We are ready. We are already running a very detailed programme on over 250 ships that we run, that will now start converting and cleaning their tanks for the new fuel from November. As far as the recovery goes, our customers have been well-informed. They have accepted a floating bunker surcharge.”
