Maersk Line is Returning To Seattle

Globalization isn't easy, it is not without cost or without failure. If this trend continues there will be more than belt-tightening in the Inland Empire. Slow suffering followed by silence, the loneliness of protest.

Puget Sound:

Twenty-four years after leaving Seattle for Tacoma, ocean carrier Maersk Line is returning to the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 18 this spring.

The move is a victory for the Port of Seattle in another way as well, because the carrier simultaneously will be moving the service from the Port of Los Angeles, and focusing it in Seattle.

The reason for leaving Los Angeles is “avoiding potential congestion,” according to an earlier statement by Maersk.

The Danish carrier, which gained global recognition recently by fending off pirates off the coast of Somalia, is one of the largest in the world.

Maersk will be calling Seattle through an alliance with GMA-CGM, a French carrier. The service will include 13 vessels on the weekly service to Seattle, seven of them operated by Maersk.
The service will call at the Asian ports of Singapore, Hong Kong, Yantian and Shanghai, China, and Busan, Korea, starting May 14, according to an earlier release by Maersk.

The new service will come as a relief for the Port of Seattle, where cargo volume was down 25 percent in March, compared to a year before.

Port of Tacoma spokeswoman Tara Mattina downplayed the move, saying that Maersk cargo through Tacoma had been declining. She expects the last Maersk ship to be in Tacoma in the first week of June.

Port of Los Angeles spokeswoman Lori Kelman said the string that is moving is a “small fraction” of Maersk’s service there. She said the carrier will “bring in other services to compensate.”