Crowley to Increase Service Frequency and Capacity in Central America Services

1999-11-18

Crowley’s Pending Sale of its South America Liner Services to Hamburg Sud Will Result in Business as Usual

(JACKSONVILLE, FL; November 10, 1999) To better accommodate growing cargo volumes between the United States, Mexico and Central America, Crowley is making several service enhancements this month for the benefit of its customers.

The company will add a third Roll On / Roll Off (Ro/Ro) vessel to its service between Gulfport, Miss., and Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador on Nov. 15. Adding the new vessel to the rotation will allow for a sailing every three days, instead of every five days presently, and boost available capacity in this Crowley trade lane by 50 percent.

In addition, Crowley will add a larger Ro/Ro vessel to its service between Port Everglades in South Florida and Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador on Nov. 15. This service features three weekly, fixed-day sailings. With the deployment of the new vessel, available vessel capacity has been increased about 13 percent or approximately 55 FEUs (Forty-foot Equivalent Units) per week.

Crowley is also adding vessel capacity in its service between Port Everglades and Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua, and will begin serving Kingston, Jamaica as part of the rotation on Nov. 29. By bringing the Ro/Ro ships M/V Ambassador and M/V Senator into the weekly, fixed-day service to replace two smaller vessels, capacity has been increased about 13 percent, or 40 FEUs per week.

These service enhancements have all been customer driven.

Our cargo volumes in the U.S. Gulf – Mexico/Central America northern zone service have been strong, said Rinus Schepen, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Central America and Mexico Services. By adding a third vessel to this service we can better accommodate shippers space requirements and provide sailings every three days, which is of great benefit to our apparel customers and their time-sensitive shipments, as well as other shippers and their commercial cargoes.

The Gulf – Mexico/Central America Northern Zone service will now utilize the M/V Galaxy, M/V Stena Timer and M/V Stena Tender, each of which can carry about 95 FEUs. The vessels call in Progreso, Mexico; Puerto Corts, Honduras and Santo Toms, Guatemala. Managua, Nicaragua and San Salvador, El Salvador are served over Puerto Corts and Santo Toms respectively.

Through our redeployment of vessels, we are also pleased to be able to offer customers more capacity in both the Central America Northern Zone and Southern Zone services via Port Everglades, Schepen said. We are equally enthusiastic about being able to provide Ro/Ro service for our customers to and from Jamaica. Many of our customers and prospects had expressed a preference for this mode of transport over our previous container service. They can now utilize our high-cube trailer equipment.

As for future service offerings in the Mexico – Central America trade, Schepen said, we continue to monitor market conditions and will not hesitate to introduce new services or product enhancements when there is sufficient need.

Oakland-based Crowley Maritime Corp., founded in 1892, is primarily a family- and employee-owned company engaged in integrated logistics, marine transportation and related services. The corporation, with more than 100 offices in major ports and cities around the world, has five primary operating subsidiaries: Crowley American Transport, Crowley Marine Services, Crowley Petroleum Transport, Vessel Management Services, and Crowley Logistics.