Tasman Orient Line expands and aligns its services

Tasman Orient Line has announced a major 
expansion and restructuring of its three liner 
services operating between New Zealand and Asia. 

The main features of this development are an 
improved coverage of NZ ports and their 
connection with the largest possible number of 
Asian destinations as well as an enhancement in 
sailing frequencies.

The most significant improvement is the
introduction of an additional vessel to the 
Line's North Asia Service (linking New Zealand 
with Japan and Korea). Commenting on the direct 
implications of this initiative to this service's 
future structure, Ulrich Stelling, Chief 
Executive of Tasman Orient Line, said: "With 4 
vessels in this trade we are able to improve the 
sailing frequency from the current 17 days to 
every 14 days and thus offer fixed day 
departures. Also, we are introducing direct calls 
at Bluff and Port Chalmers in addition to Timaru 
so that importers and exporters in that region 
will now be offered a direct multi-purpose liner 
service to and from Japan, South Korea and 
northern China." 

In the North Island of New Zealand the vessels 
will continue to call at Auckland, Wellington and 
Tauranga. "We are still considering including 
Napier if there is sufficient demand for such a 
call", he added. In Japan and Korea the schedule 
framework will remain unchanged: after leaving 
Tauranga the vessels will sail directly to 
Yokohama, followed by Busan, Osaka, Nagoya and a 
second (southbound) call at Yokohama before 
returning directly to Auckland. "This initiative 
completes the 3. 

Phase of the development programme of this 
service after we re-introduced the Timaru port 
call last year and added the northbound call at 
Yokohama in January this year. We are obviously 
very pleased with this upgrade as it 
significantly enhances the service product we are 
now able to offer", said Stelling.

The new schedule will take effect from 
next month. 

The second major change involves the upgrade of 
the sailing frequency of the South East Asia 
Service from its current 15 days also to 
fortnightly departures.
"This improvement is a direct result of Bluff and 
Port Chalmers now being serviced by the North 
Asia vessels which allows the South East Asia 
ships to turn around in Lyttelton", Stelling 
said.

The Line's service between New Zealand and the 
Philippines, Taiwan, Hongkong and Southern China 
(known as the "East Asia Service") will continue 
to operate on a fortnightly basis with 
weekly departures for container cargoes.


Effectively, all three of our services will now 
operate at 14-day sailing frequencies. This has 
given us the opportunity to align closely all 3 
schedules to achieve maximum inter-linkages 
between them. 
The attraction of the new framework is that South 
Island cargoes that are loaded on North or South 
East Asia vessels will in future have prompt 
and guaranteed connections at our appropriated 
terminal in Tauranga, to all points in Asia," 
Stelling pointed out. 

Tasman Orient Line - owned by Fletcher Challenge, 
Ahrenkiel and Swire - operates 11 multi-purpose 
vessels between New Zealand and Asia, directly 
covering more than 16 ports in a 
region stretching from Japan to Indonesia. The 
ships are designed to cater for breakbulk as well 
as containerised (both general and reefer)
cargoes. The company is the result of the merger 
between Tasman Asia and NZ-Orient Line last year.