PIL and Wan Hai resume Far EastNorthern Europe service

HAMBURG, Germany  — The two container shipping companies PIL Pacific International Lines (Singapore) and Wan Hai Lines (Taiwan) have resumed operation of their FES scheduled container liner service from the Far East to northern Europe. 

On 15 April 2010, the KOTA LAMBAI owned by Pacific International Lines was the first ship to call at the Port of Hamburg. Some 2,032 TEU (20-foot standard containers) were loaded and unloaded at the HHLA Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT). The second vessel to call at Hamburg as part of the service will be the WAN HAI 510, scheduled to arrive a week later. The KOTA LAMBAI is 263.2 metres long and 32.2 metres wide. It has a carrying capacity of 4,250 TEU, with connections for 400 refrigerated containers (reefers).  

Due to reduced demand as a result of the global economic crisis, the FES service, which has been in existence since 2004, was suspended at the end of 2008 and replaced with a slot charter operation. Since the cargo flows on the Asia route have picked up again, PIL and Wan Hai have now reinstated their service. Hamburg, as the most important port in the trade with China and the Far East, is once again on the itinerary. As well as the port of the river Elbe, the FES also calls at the European ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam. In Hamburg the liner service is handled at the HHLA Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT). On the return leg, the service docks at Port Kelang, Singapore, Shekou, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong and Nansha.  

Maritime traffic with Asia is the mainstay for container handling operations in Hamburg, accounting for 59 per cent, or 4.2 million TEU, of all the boxes handled in Hamburg in 2009. 

On the occasion of the inaugural arrival of the FED, Bengt van Beuningen from Port of Hamburg Marketing presented the captain of the KOTA LAMBAI, Avitit Chattopadhyay, with the Admiralty coat-of-arms of the Port of Hamburg in a ceremony also attended by the owner’s representative in Europe for PIL, Jing Chee Lim, and representatives of HHLA and Peter W. Lampke. Jing Chee Lim expressed his appreciation for the good and reliable cooperation with the Hamburg terminal operator HHLA and made special mention of the outstanding transport links between the Port of Hamburg and central Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltic region. 

The company Peter W. Lampke GmbH & Co. KG, with offices in Hamburg and Bremen, acts as liner agent for PIL. The agency Ernst Glässel GmbH & Co. KG acts on behalf of Wan Hai, the shipping company partnering in the FES scheduled liner service.