Last week, Maersk Line CEO Eivind Kolding unveiled the Daily Maersk service that offers a cut-off at the same time every day, seven days a week, and always with the same transport duration. This daily service will operate with 70 vessels sailing between Ningbo, Shanghai and Yantian to Felixstowe, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven. Effectively this will form an ocean conveyor belt.
Maersk Line believes that this new service will mean that containerized cargo could now be delivered with unprecedented frequency and reliability. To back up its claims, CEO Kolding said Maersk would offer customers compensation of US$100-300 per container not delivered as promised, but would also implement a no-show charge for boxes that fail to show up for sailing.
Exact sailing schedules, container costs and the ‘small print’ of the compensation scheme have yet to be finalized. However, knowing how important reliable and stable supply chains are to all our clients, Seaspace International will be seriously investigating the viability of this ambitious initiative with a view to including it in the services we offer.
Looking over the horizon, and if the service is a success, it does beg the question; what will the other carriers do to catch-up?
Watch this (Sea)space!