MEDITERRANEAN Shipping Company has relaunched its Wallaby service with the Saturday sailing from Hong Kong of the 5048 TEU MSC Eleni.
The latest iteration of the service comes after the line’s shock announcement on 25 July that it was abandoning its two South Est Asia-Australia/NZ services, Capricorn and Kiwi Express. Simultaneously MSC announced the advent of the new Wallaby, as well as a revision of its Noumea Shuttle to include NZ calls for improved feeder links.
The previous Wallaby, which was MSC’s designation for its slot-swap participation in Maersk’s Dragon, concluded at the end of April 2022 and coincided with an expansion of port calls for the semi-parallel Panda service.
Wallaby now features a lengthy rotation of Hong Kong – Yantian – Xiamen – Shanghai – Ningbo – Port Botany – Melbourne – Auckland – Bluff – Lyttelton – Wellington – Napier – Tauranga – Melbourne – Brisbane – Hong Kong with nine ships of 2546-5048 TEU, indicating a 63-day round voyage. The first sailing was originally due to depart from Hong Kong on 19 August with the 2732 TEU MSC Tania but that vessel was unable to position in time and is making a final Capricorn part-voyage before joining Wallaby.
“The Wallaby service will be enhanced and reinstated as a standalone service, offering you faster and more direct connections between Australia, New Zealand and North Asia,” MSC said, at the time of the service shuffle announcement. “Moreover, the revised rotation will provide a comprehensive coverage of New Zealand ports, including Bluff, and a seamless connection to our global network via our main hubs in Hong Kong, Yantian, Shanghai and Ningbo.”
The Panda service continues, on a weekly rotation of Pusan – Qingdao – Shanghai – Ningbo – Nansha – Hong Kong – Yantian – Brisbane – Melbourne – Port Botany – Brisbane – Pusan. In a VSA with ZIM, the latter provides three vessels 4250-5500 and designates the service ZAX while MSC currently list four ships 3586-5652 TEU.
ZIM was also a slot-charterer on Capricorn and Kiwi Express but has yet to announce any replacement arrangements.
