The journey from Hamburg to Port Kelang in Malaysia takes 24 days, with only a single stop in the Red Sea. The return leg caters primarily to the demand for transport capacity from Asia to the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea, and from there to northern Europe. The full rotation for the AEC-1 is: Hamburg, Rotterdam, Port Said, Jeddah, Port Kelang, Shanghai, Busan, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Yantian, Port Kelang, Khor Fakkan, Jebel Ali, Dammam, Jubail, Khor Fakkan, Jeddah, Port Said and returning via Antwerp to Hamburg.
UASC continues to operate its Far East'Europe direct service AEC-2 with its own fleet of 6,900-TEU vessels. Both their scheduled liner services are handled at the Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg (CTH). There are also a number of different slot charter agreements, including to the Indian subcontinent.
On the occasion of the inaugural arrival of the AEC-1 in Hamburg, Bengt van Beuningen and Jens Schlegel (from Port of Hamburg Marketing) presented the captain of the ABU DHABI, Sajid Mohammad Hussain, with the Admiralty coat-of-arms of the Port of Hamburg in the presence of J'rn Kamrad and J'rgen Holdack (both from Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg) and the representatives of UASC (NWE) GmbH in Hamburg, G'nter Kuhberg and Tom Petersen.
The United Arab Shipping Agency Company (North West Europe) GmbH acts as Hamburg liner agent on behalf of the UASC shipping company, whose ships regularly service the route from Hamburg to the Arab region and on to the Far East.
Maritime traffic with Asia, including the Middle East, is the mainstay for container handling operations in Hamburg. 59 per cent, or 4.2 million TEU of all boxes handled in Hamburg in 2009 were shipped to or from Asia. With the world economy gradually recovering and foreign trade picking up once again, a number of scheduled liner services suspended during the global financial and economic crisis are now resuming operations. The AEC-1 is already the third overseas service to include Hamburg in its itinerary in the year 2010.
