The capacity on weekly ocean-rail service from Asia to Europe is doubled by Maersk

Maersk, an integrated container logistics company, announced an increase in the number of departures to two per week in its AE19 service, a combination of a short-sea and intercontinental rail product between ports in China, Japan and Korea, and Northern Europe ports in Poland, Germany, Finland and Scandinavia. The service covers westbound and eastbound directions for refrigerated, dry and dangerous cargo. This was created to provide more supply chain flexibility in Asia/Europe routing options in response to COVID-19's impact.

Zsolt Katona, Managing Director of Eastern Europe, explained the pandemic has created some trade bottlenecks in Europe that Maersk can help solve by offering its customers higher levels of supply chain management. "For example, further developing rail into a cost efficient, reliable and scalable mode of transport between continents, creating fall back options which seems to be crucial in crisis situations," he added.

Shippers from North East Asia and Northern Europe have increased bookings on this service by attracting competitive prices, as well as faster transit. According to Zsolt, boosting the volumes of AE19 by approx. 75% in April, May and June compared to the period before COVID-19; this trend is likely to improve in the second half of the year.

AE19 is enabled by TradeLens, a digital platform that has been jointly developed by Maersk Global Trade Digitisation (GTD) and International Business Machines (IBM). The platform provides near real-time shipping data directly from each party's source, while connecting this rail corridor directly with its established ecosystem of international transportation service providers.

Route AE19 integrates a short-sea link between ports of Asian origin in Japan, China or Korea and the port of Vostochny in the Russian Far East, followed by an intercontinental rail link through Russia from Nakhodka to St. Petersburg that takes 11 days. The final leg of the product is another short-sea link between St. Petersburg and ports in Finland (Helsinki and Rauma), continental Europe such as Poland (Gdansk), Germany (Bremerhaven) or Scandinavia.

A.P. Moller - Maersk is one of the global leaders in shipping services. It is an integrated container logistics company working to connect and simplify its customers' supply chains. The company operates in 130 countries and employs about 80,000 people.

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