On August 23, the Mediterranean Shipping Company’s (MSC) SWAN service made its first direct call to the business unit of International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) at the Port of Gdynia in Poland.
Restored by MSC in May, the service links ports in Europe and the Far East, and has provided the Port of Gdynia a direct connection to the most important Chinese and Korean ports. The recently revised port rotation is Qingdao – Busan – Ningbo – Yantian – Tanjung Pelepas – Antwerp – Gdynia – Gdansk – Klaipeda – Bremerhaven – King Abdullah Port – Singapore – Qingdao. The addition of Busan to this rotation enables a direct connection between the port of Gdynia and South Korea.
“I would like to congratulate MSC and the Port of Gdynia, for this historic moment in which we inaugurate the first ever direct container connection with Chinese and Korean ports. This milestone redefines the status of BCT and the entire Port of Gdynia. We are changing its role from the current feeder port to a full-fledged maritime import and export gateway,” said Wojciech Szymulewicz, BCT chief executive officer.
He added: “Further direct calls to Gdynia, in addition to the already existing connections to North America and India, open up new prospects for the development of container transport for customers in Poland and the extension of the intermodal offer to new markets, including Ukraine and other Central European countries.”
The 318-meter boxship KURE made its first call to BCT as part of the SWAN service, discharging 1,320 containers and carrying over 2,000 on its way back. On August 28, the MSC DOMNA X, another ship offering the SWAN service and arriving directly from the Far East, made a port call at BCT.
