India’s West Coast ports of Nhava Sheva/JNPT and Mundra have suffered several void calls from major services connecting to the United States and Europe during this month.
Nhava Sheva and Mundra together account for the lion’s share of container volumes moving in and out of India.
Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) has skipped calls to India on its three services, the Himalaya Express (HEX) and IPAK for Europe and the INDUS for the US East Coast, in the last week.
“As part of the schedule alignment programme, Himalaya Service will be having a blank sailing in Week 27,” MSC (India) said in a customer advisory. “Nonetheless, we are accepting all Himalaya cargo bookings on our alternate routings.”
Additionally, the carrier noted, “Due to some technical issues, our current week IPAK service vessel MSC Loretta Voyage IS227A is running behind schedule and will be making her normal rotation at all Indian Ports in Week 28. “All the containers which are gated-in for MSC LORETTA Voyage IS227A will be planned for loading as per the revised schedule.”
Announcing the INDUS Service blank sailing, MSC said, “In view of the severe delays faced at the previous ports of call, and to enable maintain the schedule integrity, MSC will not have a scheduled sailing during Week 28, i.e., the week commencing 11 July.”
With ongoing sailing delays, sliding vessels on MSC’s HEX connection continue. The Swiss/Italian box line, in a new schedule update, said the MSC Margrit, voyage IS228A, which was due to arrive in Nhava Sheva on 15-16 July, has been delayed en route and is now expected to call on 23 July.
“Furthermore, the vessel will slide down by a week and will call Nhava Sheva under subsequent voyage IS229A. Thus, Himalaya Express will be having blank sailing in Week 28,” said MSC.
Furthermore, German carrier Hapag-Lloyd has already had ongoing intermittent omissions for West India on its connection to North Europe, called the Indian Ocean Service (IOS), from July through September. The disruptions include three sailing omissions for West India this month, including two for Nhava Sheva and one for Mundra, which the carrier described as necessary to “improve the service’s schedule reliability.”
Indian export volumes to Europe/Mediterranean have slowed down in recent weeks, according to industry sources. However, bookings on services covering India-US trade continue to be steady.
“The pressure on space and equipment during the pandemic had been due to the sudden surge in demand for goods from Asia (including the Indian Subcontinent) into the US and Europe,” said Sunil Vaswani, executive director of the Container Shipping Lines Association (CSLA).
He added that “The shipping lines responded to this aggressively by putting in additional capacity to meet this demand.”
Jenny Daniel
India correspondent
Contact email: j.daniel@container-news.com
