Turkish ARKAS Line Sets Course for Hamburg
For the first time a vessel from Turkish ARKAS Line is expected in the Port of Hamburg on April 20. The WANDA A is deployed in the West Africa Express Service (WAX) operated by ARKAS and Hapag-Lloyd and will be cleared at HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder. Since December ARKAS has already been booking slots on Hapag-Lloyd’s WAX service. The demand is running so well that now, with the WANDA A, one of ARKAS’ own ships is being taken into the service.
The weekly liner service operates from Hamburg via Algeciras, Dakar, Lagos/Apapa, Tincan Island, Tema, Abidjan and Tangiers, then back via Antwerp to Hamburg. Hapag-Lloyd deploys five 1,700 TEU vessels in the service. With the WANDA A, for the first time an additional ship from slot partner ARKAS is being introduced into WAX, meaning that with immediate effect six vessels are sailing in this service. ARKAS is represented in Germany by shipping agent Peter W. Lampke (PWL).
The WANDA A is 178 meters long, 24.5 meters wide, can carry 1,604 TEU (20-foot standard containers) and reaches a maximum draft of 9 meters. Three Liebherr SWL cranes are installed on board with a cargo capacity of 45 tons, so that in addition to containers and reefer cargo out of gauge cargo can be loaded and transported.
Overall, container services between Hamburg and the African continent have been developing very well in recent years: Since 2009 the quantities transported have more than doubled reaching 330,000 TEU in 2015. The driving force here was above all the North Africa services. More than half of Africa’s imports and exports to/from Hamburg are handled via North African ports. With the west coast of Africa, 59,000 TEU were handled via Hamburg in 2015, representing a drop of 21 percent compared to the previous year. The reduction, however, is mainly related to empty container moves, with the number of loaded containers remaining stable.
