CEO Habben Jansen gives a positive interim assessment of the Gemini alliance at the ship launch on the Jade and calls for further productivity measures.
Hapag-Lloyd has officially completed its first newbuilding program for megamax container ships with a ceremony in Wilhelmshaven. The twelfth and last freighter of the “Hamburg Express” class with a capacity of almost 24,000 TEU and a dual-fuel engine for LNG operation – delivered by the Hanwha Ocean shipyard in South Korea – was christened “Wilhelmshaven Express” today at Eurogate Container Terminal Wilhelmshaven. In the almost 180-year history of Hapag-Lloyd, it is the first ship owned by the shipping company to bear the name of the port city on the Jade. The godmother was Wibke Friedrichs, wife of former Hapag-Lloyd Executive Board member Anthony Firmin.
Like all other units in the series, the “Wilhelmshaven Express” sails in the joint Far East-Europe service of the Gemini Alliance with Maersk. Together with Bremerhaven and Rotterdam, Jade Weser Port forms the “hubs” at the European end of the route.
In his speech, the shipping company’s CEO, Rolf Habben Jansen, held out the prospect of further volume growth for Wilhelmshaven through the use of the “Hamburg Express” class. Together with the local terminal operator Eurogate, the shipping company had made “a good start to the year” and had recently broken the 1 million TEU mark in throughput for the first time. “However, we are not yet where we should be. We now have to stay on the ball,” said the CEO.
More punctual than the competition
With regard to booking demand from customers, Habben Hansen is confident that volumes will continue to increase. Many major customers are interested in expanding their business with Hapag-Lloyd in order to benefit from improved punctuality and predictability in their supply chains. Despite the ongoing geopolitical problems and port bottlenecks in north-western Europe, the punctuality rate in the Gemini network remains at 90% – a top figure compared to competitors.
The shipping company intends to exploit this quality advantage even more financially. “We believe that we can also achieve a better price on the market for a better service,” said Habben Hansen. The link between price and quality is soon to play a greater role in negotiations with cargo customers. To this end, punctuality values will soon be recorded not only for the ships, but also for the transit times of the individual containers and shared with the parties involved. On-time delivery (OTD) measurement for containers is due to start in a few weeks’ time.
To further increase productivity in the transport chain, the Hapag boss also sees a need for further improvement in the ports. For Eurogate Container Terminal Wilhelmshaven, Habben Jansen has set the target of increasing the handling capacity on the ship from 125 to 200 container movements per hour. “That is the task we have to master together.”
Now that the “Hamburg Express” class has been completed, the shipping company is preparing to build the next two series of ships with 16,800 and 9,200 TEU, twelve of each. They will not be the last. He does not want to rule out the possibility that “we will order more ships in the coming months”, Habben Jansen said, indicating a clear interest in further projects. (mph)
