In a down market it’s great to be able to announce any new business at all.  It is tremendous to be able to announce a lot of new business, some of which you stole from a competitor!  That’s exactly what the Port of Virginia did today when they announced that China Shipping and two new CKYH alliance services will begin calling on Norfolk International Terminals in the next few months.  

The most exciting news comes is that one of the CKYH services, the NATCO-4, will have Norfolk as its first stop from Asia.  This means that customers shipping goods via this services will be able to receive their containers via Virginia before other ports.  First Call services are a big deal for ports and Virginia hopes that they can leverage the NATCO-4 success into more First Call services.  The full port rotation for the NATCO-4 service is Shanghai, Chiwan, Yantian, Hong Kong, Virginia and New York and will utilize eight vessels each with a 3,850 TEU capacity.  With the change in the service, CKYH dropped Savannah from the NATCO-4 rotation.

Virginia is also being added to the NATCO-5 service.  The full port rotation for that service is Pusan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian, Xiamen, Savannah, Virginia and New York and will utilize eight vessels each with a 3,300 TEU capacity.

Finally, after bypassing Virginia over one year ago, China Shipping is adding Virginia back into their weekly AAE-1 service.  The full port rotation for the AAE-1 service will be Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yantian, Miami, Savannah, Virginia and New York.  This service will use smaller vessels, each of which are approximately 3,000 TEUs.

All told, the new services represent about 150 new ship calls to the Port of Virginia.  That’s great news in any economic environment.