MV Hatta, the United Arab Shipping Company’s high-speed vessel with a capacity of 6,919 TEUs, called at Malta Freeport last Thursday.

This vessel has a service speed of over 25 knots, which significantly improves the transit times between ports of call. UASC signed a contract for the building of eight new generation vessels in 2005 and MV Hatta, delivered on 19 February, is the second vessel of this type, joining the MV Al Safat deployed in the Asia-Europe Container service.

This is the first European call for the MV Hatta, which will be deployed as part of the AEC service but it is planned that it will then be shifted to the Interim and AEC2 Service. The AEC service, which started calling at Malta last January has the following port rotation: Malta Freeport – Rotterdam – Thamesport – Hamburg – Antwerp – Yokohama – Nagoya – Kobe – Hakata – Pusan – Kaoshiung – Yantian – Hong Kong – Singapore – Khor Fakkan – Jebel Ali – Jeddah. At present, Malta Freeport has connections with over 128 ports worldwide, 60 of which are throughout Europe, North Africa, the Black Sea and the Middle East.

UASC’s existing fleet consists of 35 owned and chartered vessels while UASC’s container fleet is currently in the region of 200,000 TEU capacity.