Shipping liner Hapag-Lloyd has omitted the Port of Savannah from its East Coast 2 Loop (EC2) service which connects Asia to North America amid backlogs at the port.
The omission will start on week 50, 2021 and will continue through till week 1, 2022. This will mean that the ONE Hawk, Hyundai Honour, Rome Express and the Antwerpen Express will no longer stop at Savannah.
The service will now follow the route of Qingdao (China) – Ningbo (China) – Shanghai (China) – Busan (South Korea) – Cartagena (Columbia) – New York (US) – Norfolk (US) – Wilmington (US) – Charleston (US) – Cartagena – Busan – Qingdao.
In a statement from Hapag-Lloyd, it stated that the omission comes in a bid to clear backlogs in some of its ports and aid its services’ schedule integrity.
Customers have been recommended to use EC1, EC4 and EC5 services as alternatives if they want to use the port for their shipments.
Many shipping lines have been omitting ports that are backlogged with waiting vessels from different services to enhance schedule reliability. One other example of this is how MSC has temporarily omitted the Port of Seattle from its Eagle service which also connects Asia to North America.
This comes as it was revealed in Maersk’s October 2021 market update that “Port of Seattle continues to struggle with long waiting times of 28 days.”
