Daily Maersk May Add Routes
6 March 2012
Just four months after launching its Daily Maersk liner service in the Asia-Europe trade, Maersk Line says it could expand the highly popular “conveyor belt” offering to other trade routes later this year.
The carrier will be in position to decide in the third quarter whether the Daily Maersk service would work on other trade lanes, CEO said Soren Skou, adding, “There are no concrete plans for now.”
The Daily Maersk would transfer most easily to the Asia-U.S. market, according to former CEO Eivind Kolding, who launched the Asia-Europe service in late October.
The Daily Maersk played a key role in boosting Maersk’s Asia-Europe market share to a record high of 19.4 percent by the end of 2011, Skou said. Maersk’s market share increased only after the launch of Daily Maersk, “a good sign customers like it,” he said.
Only six containers shipped last week from Asia on Daily Maersk services failed to arrive in Europe at the guaranteed delivery time.
The Daily Maersk, which compensates shippers in cash for late delivery, covers 17,000 to 18,000 20-foot equivalent units out of Maersk’s total weekly traffic of 35,000 TEUs on the Asia-Europe trade.
The service, originally from four Asian ports to Felixstowe, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven, was extended to Le Havre, Hamburg and Zeebrugge in February, though there is no compensation for late delivery to these ports.
Skou said Maersk has got sufficient market share to fill the capacity of the carrier’s 70 largest ships that operate the Daily Maersk and is now focusing on increasing profitability.
Maersk can charge a premium for reliability, the most important factor for its customers because it removes uncertainty from their supply chains. Customer satisfaction is at an all-time high of 6.1 on a 7-point scale, and its 25-net promoter score, a customer loyalty metric, is similar to large car manufacturers. “An improved service will allow us to charge more,” Skou said.
