The sea-rail service that connects Far East Asia and Europe will now have two weekly departures in both directions.

The AE19 service, set up in cooperation with Modul and Global Ports, consolidates shipments coming from the ports of Busan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Qingdao, Xingang, Dalian, Kaohsiung, Yokohama, Moji, and Hibiki shinko in the Russian Far East Port of Vostochniy from which container trains (with dry, refrigerated, and dangerous cargo) go to the Port of St. Petersburg and then another sea service distributes them throughout the ports of Helsinki, Rauma, Gdańsk, Bremerhaven, and Rotterdam.

"The pandemic has triggered some trade bottlenecks in Europe that we can help solve by offering to our customers higher levels of supply chain management e.g. 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," Zsolt Katona, Managing Director, Eastern Europe, Maersk, explained.

There are also plans to turn the AE19 into a daily service, Maersk said.

Photo: Maersk