Kursiu links Sweden, Germany and Lithuania

Short-sea operator Kursiu Linija has started a new service linking Hamburg and Bremerhaven in Germany to Ahus, the largest container port in south-eastern Sweden. The service will also call at Klaipeda in Lithuania.

Arijus Ramonas, managing director of Kursiu Linija, says, "Ahus is a strategically located port, with excellent infrastructural links. And the new service will perform two vital functions. It will establish a feeder service for deep-sea carriers between Germany, southern Sweden and Lithuania, as well as providing an intra-European service linking Lithuania and southern Sweden. Kursiu Linija will now be the only lo-lo service offering 45ft pallet-wide high-cube and curtainsided containers between Sweden and the Baltic States."

In order to handle the service, Kursiu Linija is shortly to open an office in Sweden, under the name Kursiu Linija Sweden AB. Arijus Ramonas says, "Kursiu Linija is now an established brand moving over 140,000 teu annually for major shippers, linking low-cost Eastern Europe suppliers with retail chains in Western Europe. The demands of the trade now require us to have our own offices in key locations. Kursiu Linija believes in being close to its customers, so that we can offer an improved service, using all the advantages of integrated IT systems throughout our network of offices."

The Kursiu vessels that will be deployed on the Ahus service are the 374 teu Passaden and the 510 teu Atlantic Comet.

* Lithuania-based Kursiu Linija is an intra-European carrier providing cost-effective door-to-door transportation services between the Baltic States, Poland, the CIS and the UK and Northern Europe. Its fleet of seven vessels serves Klaipeda, Liepaja, Kaliningrad, Gdansk, Teesport, Ipswich, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Ahus.