Measures to improve schedule reliability on Southern Star service

At Maersk we are always looking for ways to enhance Customer Experience and making sure that we are doing everything we can to deliver our promise. In the month of January-2021 we announced changes to our New Zealand to Asia and Europe network which meant that we adjusted our weekly Southern Star service ship count to a 6 vessel set up, thus improving the speed between New Zealand and rest of the world. Our expectation at that point in time was that the congestion and operational situation in the NZ ports would improve, however the operational environment is not improving and not expected to be resolved until the later part of 2021.

In order to offer a reliable New Zealand export transport plan, we will increase the Southern Star service ship count from 6 to 7, thus enabling the service to be on time for transhipment connections to 2nd leg services in Tanjung Pelepas and Singapore. By doing this we will:

• Introduce extra buffer to the overall schedule between New Zealand and South East Asia,
• Cater for the expected delays across NZ ports,
• Continue to have a weekly coverage and avoid any further vessel sliding,
• Be on time to transhipment hubs in Tanjung Pelepas and Singapore.

The additional vessel phase in please is as per the below:

• Rio Negro voyage 119N with ETA in Tauranga on 22nd of May.
• We will closely monitor New Zealand port situation and review the deployment as soon as operational environment in New Zealand changes.

Our dedicated Sales and Customer Service Teams are here to assist you! Should you have any questions on how this change will impact you and your business please contact your dedicated customer service agent via our Live Chat channel for improved accessibility and speed of response to your business needs.