MEDITERRANEAN Shipping Company is putting more emphasis on trans-Tasman connections by establishing a Northern Loop to complement the May-introduced Southern Loop.
The latest overhaul will be accomplished by splitting the Noumea Shuttle, which henceforth will be known as the Noumea-Fiji Loop, for a rotation of Brisbane – Noumea – Lautoka – Suva – Brisbane.
MSC says this will provide greater efficiency for cargo moving to and from New Caledonia and Fiji, with connections to the broader MSC network via Brisbane. The first sailing will be Medkon Ten KI636A, which arrives in Brisbane on 8 September.
The new Northern Loop will sail Sydney – Auckland – Napier – Tauranga – Sydney and is designed to support fast Trans-Tasman transits between Australia and New Zealand. This new service will commence with MSC Lucia III KJ635A, arriving in Sydney 12 September.
The updating of the Southern Loop appears to follow a period of uncertainty, as it is reverting to its original rotation of Melbourne – Bluff – Port Chalmers – Lyttelton – Wellington – Nelson – Wellington – Bell Bay – Melbourne.
Recent schedules for September had shown the transfer of the Nelson and second Wellington calls to the Noumea Shuttle, but the latter’s split has reversed that plan.
MSC says this update will provide fast connections to the weekly Eagle service to North America. The new/old Southern Loop is effective from MSC Augusta III KH637A, ETA Melbourne 9 September.
The world number one has been further fine-tuning a number of its services since announcing a major overhaul in mid-May.
Napier calls were dropped from Eagle in early August, Jakarta northbound has been intermittently omitted on Koala due to congestion, while Shanghai and Hong Kong have been omitted alternately due to delays at the former.
Shanghai and Ningbo are also being bypassed on Panda and Wallaby, respectively, with weather-related delays at both ports now blowing out to 10-11 days.