The Dutch Vote for K Line

Businesses in the Netherlands have elected the Japanese carrier  ‘K’ Line as the best performing deep sea container carrier of 2014, based on the research conducted by the Erasmus University Rotterdam among members of the Dutch Shippers’ Council (EVO) and Exports Association (Fenedex).

Daisuke Arai, European CEO of ‘K’ Line, accepted the award on Thursday, November 13th at the Dutch National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, which was presented by EVO-Chairman Chris Bruggink.

The annual award is granted by EVO to the deep-sea container carrier whose service level is perceived to be the best by its members.

The clients evaluate carriers on topics such as reliability, communication, punctuality, price and routes.

The Japanese carrier has the best score on 13 of the 21 criteria, those being, among others: reliability of booking, accurate documentation, availability of cargo space, customer service quality and delivery of information.

Looking at the market as a whole, the research also showed that businesses generally are satisfied with the geographical coverage of carriers.

EVO-Chairman Bruggink said: “I am pleased this trend is moving in the right direction and I sincerely hope that next year’s score is even higher.’Yet, there were also declining trends – shippers for example experienced a lower degree of loyalty towards the signed contracts. This worries me, because I do not want to believe that loyalty is an utopia. Trust should be the fundament in the relationship between shippers and carriers.”

Research results showed that the loss and damage performance also showed a declining trend. The number of containers lost at sea in the last year however can clarify this in a way.

Press Release