For the first time a vessel from Turkish Arkas Line called the Port of Hamburg on 20 April. 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 been booking slots on Hapag-Lloyd’s WAX service. The demand was running well so 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” (1,604 TEU), 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.
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.
