Competitiveness Doubled
The OOCL Utah’s entry into Incheon Port heralded the start of the sea-lane CC1 and CC2 Combo service that connects Incheon Port and the US in the morning of September 9.
The CC1 CC2 Combo service is a new regular containership service created out of the G6 Alliance’s integration of the Central China 1 route through which vessels call at Incheon Port and the Central China 2 route through which they does not.
The OOCL Utah which entered the port on September 9 is a large 8,888TEU containership which beats a 6,800TEU vessel for the CCI service in terms of loading capacities. The ship is 335 meters long and 43 meters wide. The ship went into history as the largest-ever containership that entered Incheon Port.
In addition to the Utah, OOCL will put four 7,500TEU vessels into operation. APL will make use of one 6,500TEU ship. They will touch at Sun Kwang Newport Container Terminal (SNCT) of New Incheon Port every Friday.
According to the Incheon Port Authority (IPA), the Utah entered the port after six weeks’ suspension of operation caused by a change in its alliance fleets and chalked up work of handling 143TEUs on its first day at Incheon Port. In the future, when Hyundai Merchant Marine expands their sales activities, the cargo volume will recover soon.
The combo service will promote the use of Incheon Port for the transportation of fresh foods such as fruits and livestock products to which the contraction of transportation time is vital for their freshness and frozen and refrigerated cargoes. This is because in the past, a ship enters the port on Saturday, and quarantine and customs clearance were conducted on Monday after the weekend but now, a ship that arrives at the port on Friday is able to make cargoes pass their quarantine and customs clearance processes and to transport the cargoes right away on the same day.
“As a leader and a platform in connecting exporters and importers to shipping companies, the IPA will promote the new service by putting all its energies into marketing to attract cargoes for the Seoul metropolitan area such as livestock products and fruits and cooperation with relevant organizations for speedy quarantine and customs clearance,” said Kim Sun-cheol, head of the Marketing Team at the IPA.