MAERSK LINE is to undertake a major re-organisation of its Oceania services, adding one, canning two and revising a fourth.
The headline is the introduction of a revived Northern Star in the form of a rapid weekly service between Greater China and New Zealand, with a southbound call in Brisbane. Full rotation is Shanghai – Hong Kong – Brisbane – Auckland – Nelson – Timaru – Port Chalmers – Napier – Tauranga, with Maersk promising NZ exporters a Tauranga-Shanghai transit of 15 days.
The service will operate standalone with 8 x 2500 TEU ships each with 500 reefer plugs, albeit the first sailing is by the 3364 TEU Maersk Innoshima, ex Shanghai 10 October with first arrival Tauranga 26 November. Maersk says that combined with its J Star service – operated in consortium with COSCO SL and ONE – it will offer two weekly sailings to NZ’s most important export market.
With the advent of Northern Star, weekly Tauranga calls by the AC3/APSA2 service, en route from Central/ South America to East Asia and referred to by Maersk in NZ as Triple Star, will cease – notwithstanding the carrier only recently announced the resumption of the weekly visits after a seasonal pause. The last Triple Star sailing will now be by Sally Maersk ex Tauranga 20 November.
In a third major development Maersk will – again – abandon its Polaris trans-Tasman service, which has been operating on a three-week-out-of-four basis between NZ and Melbourne in its most recent iteration. Maersk says this link will now be covered by existing weekly connections on the PANZ (WCNA) and OC1 (ECNA) services. The final Polaris sailing will be eastbound from Auckland 6 November, by the OC1 vessel Spirit of Auckland which is off-hiring and reportedly joining Matson on a new charter.
Finally, Maersk is again adjusting the Southern Star service from South East Asian hub ports to NZ via Port Botany, dropping Napier (which will see Northern Star calls instead) in a move the line says allows for a greater schedule buffer, enhancing reliability and consistency. The revised rotation thus becomes Tanjung Pelepas – Singapore – Sydney – Tauranga – Lyttleton – Port Chalmers, with the first sailing on this weekly schedule by Maersk Rio Bravo from Tanjung Pelepas on 3 November.
Maersk says imports from Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Malaysian and Singapore hubs will continue on Southern Star. “This upgrade will enhance service reliability, maintaining seamless connections with our Northern Star, J Star, OC1, and PANZ services at both Port Chalmers and Tauranga,” it claims.
The raft of notified changes comes two months after east-west partner but north-south rival MSC announced massive changes to its own local services, dropping two SEA-ANZ loops, expanding its Noumea Shuttle and re-introducing Wallaby, sailing China-Australia-NZ-Australia-China.
