Zim Line is taking steps to improve the coverage of its eastern Mediterranean liner network, including adding more calls on some schedules, increasing slot capacity and reducing transit times on key port-to- port corridors.
The most notable change will take place in the carrier’s key Turkey Greece Express (TGX) service where the northern Greek port of Thessaloniki is being withdrawn from the service and Iskenderun included as an additional call in Turkey. Calls at Thessaloniki had always involved a slight diversion for the ships while rising levels of congestion in the port was impacting TGX’s service reliability and transit time.
In future, Thessaloniki is to be called at within the Black Sea/eastern Mediterranean calling pattern of the Zim Med Pacific service. Once the 15 ships of 4,250 TEU to 5,000 TEU deployed in the service have completed their westbound circuit in Novorossiysk, they load in Odessa, Thessaloniki, Ambarli, and Haifa, carrying containers including intra-regional cargo, before returning to Asia.
The addition of Iskenderun on the TGX service reflects its emergence as the gateway for eastern and south eastern Anatolia and this is a region where imports and exports are expanding and it is a market that Zim is keen to tap into.
The revised TGX schedule will also shorten transit time between Piraeus, and Israel by a week or so to just four days. That is hugely significant as both ports play relay roles in Zim’s liner network.
The various changes are also indicative of the increasing cargo flows between Greece and Israel and vice versa, Zim’s desire to improve connections between its line-haul and intra-regional services and the carrier’s goal of increasing its share of the eastern Mediterranean container market.
The new TGX itinerary will comprise calls at Haifa, Ashdod, Iskenderun, Antalya, Ambarli, Izmit, Gemlik, Ambarli, Piraeus, Izmir and return to Haifa. Three ships with a capacity of between 1,600 TEU and 2,800 TEU are deployed.
