Hutchison Ports-operated Port of Felixstowe has handled the largest number of containers ever on a single ship in Europe, when the UK port’s dockers handled 23,773 TEU of MSC Diletta.
The 24,000TEU MSC Diletta docked in Felixstowe, as part of the port rotation of the 2M Alliance’s Griffin/AE55 Far East Asia to North Europe service.
“The size of container ships has been increasing for many years and with growing demand for services into the Port of Felixstowe we are seeing ever greater container exchanges. We are also seeing a trend to consolidate cargo on fewer ultra-large ships,” commented Robert Ashton, operations director at the Port of Felixstowe.
“We are very pleased with the performance on this call and to have been able to work with the 2M partners to help achieve their objectives to supply the current high demand for Far East imports to UK consumers,” added Ashton.
MSC Diletta departed from the major UK port on 12 January.
Meanwhile, the Port of Felixstowe noted that work is underway to further increase the port’s ability to handle the world’s largest container ships.
Harwich Haven Authority is dredging the main approach channel to increase the depth from 14.5 metres to 16.0 metres, a project expected to be completed in 2023.
The port is also increasing the depth at its deep-water berths. Berth 7 was deepened to 16.5 metres in 2021 and Berth 6 will also be dredged to 16.5 metres in 2022 at the same time as Berths 8&9 are increased to 18.0 metres.
