The Lidl shipping company stops in Barcelona to link Europe with China and Bangladesh – El Mercantil
The first services of the shipping company Tailwind Shipping Lines, created by the German supermarket chain Lidl, have already stopped at the port of Barcelona to link Europe with Asia. Its consignee in Spain, Martico, is responsible for the two regular line commercial routes that began in mid-August, one to Shanghai (China) and the other to Chittagong (Bangladesh), baptized as Panda Service and Tiger Service respectively.
Tailwind Shipping Lines has a fleet of four ships to carry out these links, which reach Europe full of Asian products for Lidl and other shippers. For this reason, efforts are now being made to attract export loads from Europe to Asia to balance flows. In addition to calling at the BEST terminal in the port of Barcelona, both routes connect with another European hub, Rotterdam.
Both lines of the Tailwind shipping company also call at Rotterdam, in addition to the BEST terminal in Barcelona
In relation to the line between Barcelona and Shanghai, the frequency of this service for 20 and 40-foot containers is carried out every two weeks and the transit is framed between 30 and 36 days depending on the rest of the scales included in the service. (Ningbo and Shenzhen). The connection between Barcelona and Chittagong also addresses 45-foot containers with a transit time of 20 days and departures for exports every 18 days.
After a first test service that was carried out months before with another vessel, the ship ‘Wiking’, with the capacity to transport 4,957 teus and six years old, opened the shipping company’s scales in the port of Barcelona last 11 of August. She was followed by the ship ‘Jadrana’, eight years old and with a capacity of 4,957 teus, which docked on September 10 in Barcelona. A third ship, ‘Talassa’, 17 years old and with a capacity of 5,527 teus, will call at the Catalan site on September 24. The Lidl shipping company has a fourth ship in its fleet, ‘Merkur Ocean’, a nine-year-old container ship with a capacity of 3,868 TEUs, but its use for services linking with Spain has not yet been reported.
The ship ‘Talassa’ will be the company’s third to moor in Barcelona and will do so on September 24
Lidl created the shipping company Tailwind Shipping Lines in April with the aim of having ships to overcome interruptions in the supply chain. Initially, as guaranteed by Alphaliner, it leased the ships ‘Wiking’, ‘Jadrana’ and ‘Merkur Ocean’ for a period of 48 months. Later, I acquired the ship ‘Talassa’. Other large cargo companies, such as Amazon, Ikea, Walmart or Home Depot, began chartering ships and acquiring containers a year ago to avoid the difficulties suffered by maritime transport last summer. However, Lidl is the first to launch its own shipping company so as not to depend on third parties and has managed to place it in 46th place in the Alphaliner world top 100.