Maersk hope to make shipping more science than an art with Daily Maersk.

Maersk Line has recently enhanced its service on the Asia-North Europe trade lane to the point where it is prepared to guarantee its transit time and pay a penalty of up to $US300 if the ship is late.

The company calls the service Daily Maersk and claims that it will dramatically change the way shipping is done. It offers a daily cut-off at the same time every day, seven days a week, and always with the exact same transportation time. It says that containerised cargo will now be delivered with unprecedented frequency and reliability.

The engine behind Daily Maersk is 70 vessels operating a daily service between four ports in Asia (Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian and Tanjung Pelepas) and three ports in Europe (Felixstowe, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven) in what amounts to a giant ocean conveyor belt for the world’s busiest trade lane.

Regardless of which of the four Asian ports the cargo is loaded at, the transportation time – from cut-off to cargo availability – is fixed. Maersk Line promises that cargo at the other end will be available for pick-up on the agreed date and has made a promise of monetary compensation should customers’ containers not arrive on time. This promise is a first in the shipping industry.

“We set out to design a service that takes the stress out of our customers’ lives, to change shipping from the weakest to the strongest link in the supply chain,” said Maersk Line CEO, Eivind Kolding. “The lack of on-time delivery costs our customers large sums of money because it makes shipping more of an art than a science.”

Today, shipping lines serving the Asia–North Europe trade are unreliable with around 44% of all containers being late, 11% are late by more than two days and 8% are more than eight days late.  Maersk says that before this new service was introduced it was ‘best-in-class’ with 75% of its vessels on the Asia–North Europe trade arriving on time.

The new service will guarantee that every container will arrive on time.  Maersk will pay compensation to the shipper of US$100/container that is 1-3 days late and US$300/container for any that are four or more days late.