Carnival Maritime has announced that to facilitate port entries into Hamburg for AIDA and Costa ships it has entered into a collaboration with the Hamburg Vessel Coordination Center (HVCC).

Carnival Maritime will be sharing the expected arrival and departure times of the ships with the so-called nautical terminal coordination (NTK) department of the HVCC. The department will match this information with the current traffic situation and keep Carnival Maritime informed.

For instance, if it looks like there will be waiting time if a ship maintains speed, because a Costa Group ship may interfere with another large vessel, the NTK can recommend it to speed up. Vice versa, an obstruction can be avoided by slightly reducing speed.

Carnival Maritime shares this information with the respective ship’s command so that they can optimize their speed. “This saves on fuel, because it reduces waiting times,” explained Jorgen Strandberg, director fleet operations at Carnival Maritime. “Being even more punctual is a great advantage to us, because the cruise ship will generally have to make up for lost time afterwards. To do so, it will increase its speed and thus fuel consumption and emissions.”

The HVCC is a port-wide coordination center for ocean-going ships, feeder and inland vessel traffic in the Port of Hamburg. Within the HVCC the NTK department supports the port authority and companies to achieve a smooth traffic flow.

“We are very pleased that Carnival Maritime is collaborating with us,” stated Heinrich Goller, the CEO of HVCC. “The more partners that sign up for our services, the better we can coordinate the large vessels. It is our goal to recognize potential conflict situations on the river Elbe at an early stage and to make early suggestions to our partners how they avoid situations.”

The HVCC is a joint venture of the Port of Hamburg’s two container-terminal operators, Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) and EUROGATE Container Terminal Hamburg GmbH (CTH).