The new London Gateway super port has gained its second customer as it battles with other ports to acquire business. The German line Hamburg Süd announced that, from May, it will transfer all its services from the port of Tilbury, now rebranded as London Container Terminal (LCT), to the DP World-owned London Gateway.
In an announcement to customers in January, the line stated that the move to the new port, which is ten miles downriver, ‘will help ensure a seamless transition from one port to the other’. The services affected will be: SAEC-1 (South America east coast, operated with Hapag-Lloyd under its River Plate Express service), SAWC-1 (South America west coast, Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand), and EPIC (North America west coast, India, Pakistan and Middle East, also operated with Hapag-Lloyd).
As a result, three weekly calls have gone from LCT. A total of 27 vessels are deployed on all three services, with Hamburg Süd deploying the largest vessels, the state-of-the-art Santa Clara class vessels, which have a capacity of 7,100TEU, on the SAEC-1 service. AM
