Shipping Lines : Maersk to redesign its ocean network in West & Central Asia

Improved speed to market, predictability, and flexibility to customers’ supply chains form the backbone of the rejig that includes the introduction of new services ME4, ME7, and FI4 amongst other changes

Mumbai / Dubai: Maersk is redesigning its ocean network in West & Central Asia that connects countries including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia to the world.

The changes in the network are primarily aimed at improving speed to market, providing higher predictability, and offering more flexibility to customers’ supply chains. Further, redesigning the network will also bring more resilience to the customers’ supply chains, protecting them better from operational challenges that arise out of contingencies.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chains have experienced a perfect storm. The unprecedented scale of operational challenges restricting supply during the pandemic and the strong demand surge in parallel led to significant bottlenecks, capacity issues, and unforeseen delays across supply chains. This prompted us to redesign our ocean network to overcome these challenges and make our customers’ supply chains more resilient

Improved speed to market

• The new ME4 service will offer direct coverage between Doha and North Europe, thus improving speed to market by up to 5 days and by up to 6 days from Jebel Ali to West Africa for the majority of customers.

• The ME3 service connecting fresh produce exporters from Pakistan to Russia will see an improvement in what are already ‘best-in-industry transit times. This will further reduce the wastage of fresh produce by maintaining its integrity through end-to-end cold chain logistics offered by Maersk in Pakistan.

• The FI3 service will change from fortnightly to weekly giving frequent options for importers getting cargo from the Far East into North India

Improved predictability and flexibility

• The ME7 service will connect South India’s lifestyle, retail and automotive manufacturing sector directly to Europe. The cargo will thus flow smoothly without getting affected by unforeseen delays in case of congestions.

• The ME7 service will also provide a direct and regular rotation between the hubs of Colombo and Salalah, thus letting customers have a more flexible option of moving their cargo.

• The new FI4 service, which combines the previous Jade Express and Chennai Express, will connect South East Asia with India and Pakistan on a single direct service.

Our customers deserve a predictable service that will allow them to plan their supply chains better. With our redesigned ocean network, we are not only providing our customers with predictability and resilience but also greater speed to market allowing them to optimize their inventories and operations to meet the surge in demand with a competitive edge.