Israel-based Zim announced it will inaugurate a new express service connecting South and Southeast Asia with the U.S. East Coast (USEC) in late May.
The new service, Zim Seven Star Express (Z7S), will begin May 29 and connect South China, Southeast Asia, and the Indian sub-continent to the U.S. East Coast via the Suez Canal.
The service network to be fully operated by Zim offers extensive port coverage from South China, Vietnam, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the India sub-continent to the U.S. East Coast main ports, “delivering best service in terms of transit times and high reliability,” said a company statement.
The new service offers the fastest transit time from Vietnam and Indian ports via Colombo to the U.S., it added.
Z7S also caters to emerging markets in the South Asian region via Singapore and Colombo hubs, offering one of the fastest available connections to New York, added the statement.
Zim will deploy 10 vessels with capacity of 5,000-6,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the service, which runs on a weekly schedule.
The planned rotation is Dachan Bay, Yantian, Cai Mep, Singapore, Colombo, (Suez transit), New York, Savannah, Norfolk, (Suez transit), Singapore, and back to Dachan Bay.
Rafi Danieli, company president & CEO, said the launch of the Z7S service marks Zim’s initiative to provide logistics options for the Asia-U.S. trade. “Looking ahead, this new service is an additional phase of Zim’s strategy striving to respond to customers’ needs, as we have recently done with the ‘extra loaders’ from Asia to the US East Coast.”
