The first voyage was completed in early February with the 4,389 TEU capacity ship ZHONG GU JI LIN , which called at Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, New York/New Jersey, Charleston, Houston and Freeport (Bahamas), before returning to Qingdao.

Although Transfar has announced vessels and sailings for the next two months or so, a longer-term and regular schedule does not appear to have been put in place yet, with the frequency offered being erratic. This may be related to the challenges in finding suitable tonnage and containers for the operation.

Transfar is a newcomer to the liner shipping market having launched its China/US west coast service just seven months ago. But the company, which is owned by Worldwide Logistics, has more than 10 years of experience in the freight forwarding business and, interestingly, it is backed by Alibaba, China’s giant ecommerce entity. In September 2020, the latter company’s logistics arm Cainiao purchased a 10.3% equity holding in Worldwide and raised this stake to 13.5% in January 2021. 

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This complete item is approximately 200 words in length, and appeared in the February 2022 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 11. To access this issue download the PDF here