Direct services between Ireland and the US are returning with the addition of the Port of Cork to the International Container Lines (ICL) transatlantic service operated by four vessels of around 3,000TEU.
The ICL weekly Atlantic service operates out of the Penn Terminal in Pennsylvania calling at the Port of Wilmington in North Carolina, Southampton in the UK and Belgium’s Antwerp facility, and from 6 June the 3091TEU Independent Vision will also call at the port of Cork.
The three other vessels on the trade are the Independent Spirit with a capacity of 2,546TEU, the Independent Pursuit with a similar capacity and the Independent Horizon which is the largest vessel in the service at 3,108TEU.
Sailing from the Irish port on Saturdays the vessels will take 10 days to complete the westbound leg of the journey from Cork and 17 days to make the return, eastbound, trip.
CEO of the Port of Cork, Brendan Keating said: “The timing [of the service] is perfect with the opening of our new €80 million Cork Container Terminal in Ringaskiddy on the horizon and has the potential to grow cargo volumes to and from Ireland. ”
ICL has been serving the North Atlantic trade for 35 years.
Nick Savvides
Managing Editor
