As shippers and forwarders take into account a swap to sea-air and airfreight options in response to the Cape detours ensuing from the Red Sea disaster, one other various has emerged – a land bridge throughout the Middle East.
Israeli digital freight market Trucknet Enterprise has teamed up with UAE-based PureTrans, which operates a landline transit community, its companion, DP World, Cox Logistics (Bahrain) and Egypt-based logistics agency WWCS to offer trucking providers connecting the Dubai port of Jebel Ali and the port of Mina Salman, in Bahrain.
It goes through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Haifa in Israel and Port Said in Egypt, from the place cargo can proceed to Europe and past.
Trucknet markets the land bridge as an ‘categorical’ service, claiming it shortens ocean transport routes by 10 days.
Normally, a field ship’s journey from the UAE to Haifa takes about two weeks, provided that its itinerary often contains calls at ports en path to unload or load cargo. With the land bridge, a container unloaded at Jebel Ali and transferred to a truck may be in Haifa in solely 4 days.
But the associated fee is round 15-20% dearer, estimated Trucknet CEO Hanan Fridman. But he added that the corporate’s concentrate on lowering the variety of vehicles returning empty to the UAE from Israel supplied some scope to decrease transport prices.
And he mentioned, taking into consideration the hikes in ocean freight charges as a result of re-routing of ships round Africa and ensuing longer transit occasions, the land bridge may seemingly be a less expensive choice.
A spokesperson for Trucknet mentioned The Loadstar:”Demand for the land bridge has elevated. Many shippers from Israel, Europe, and the US are turning to us for assist.”
However, the apparent disadvantage is the service’s restricted capability in comparison with ships. But a supply mentioned if swift and secure transit may very well be assured, it could actually attraction to the market, particularly to shippers of time-sensitive items who would most likely be keen to pay the extra price.
Meanwhile, ocean service Hapag Lloyd just lately knowledgeable clients that it was now providing inland options in Saudi Arabia for “Red Sea connectivity”, because it continued to handle the influence of the Suez Canal state of affairs.
It mentioned: “We are introducing land service corridors from Jebel Ali, Dammam and Jubail to Jeddah. This will allow the reference to our ocean shuttle service out of Jeddah. While this isn’t the optimum answer when it comes to capability, it’ll provide one other choice to the present transit occasions, particularly the place various routings turn out to be excessively lengthy.”
The service is already trying to broaden its inland community inside the Gulf Cooperation Council, which incorporates Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.