On April 13, maritime freight carrier Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) officially inaugurated the new freight line linking southern Italy and Albania, which has been running in trial mode for three months. The container ship ‘Lady Elisabeth' will sail from Bari (located on Italy's southeastern coast) once a week to Durrës, Albania, then proceeding to Gioia Tauro port (on Italy's southwestern coast) and completing the round trip back to Bari. MSC expects to handle 30,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) a year on the new route.
The ‘Lady Elisabeth' has already performed 15 trial round trips on the Bari-Durrës-Gioia Tauro-Bari route. The route allows freights to cross the main international maritime routes as Gioia Tauro port is a main hub for MSC. Gioia Tauro is the first port in Italy and in the Mediterranean for container loadings and the third overall in Europe, following Rotterdam and Hamburg.