China Launches 18-Day Arctic Express Containership Route To Europe With Stops in UK, Germany, Poland
China’s NewNew Polar Bear in a convoy on the Northern Sea Route during eastbound voyage in October 2023. (Source: Rosatomflot)
A Chinese shipping company is set to launch the first liner-type container shipping route via the Arctic. The service will begin in September connecting three ports in China to four destinations in Western Europe. The country’s Ministry of Transport has begun to release live sea ice monitoring to improve safety for Arctic shipping.
After several years of point-to-point container shipping operations connecting China and Russia via the Arctic, a Chinese operator is set to begin the first liner-type service to Western Europe.
Haijie Shipping Company will launch its China-Europe Arctic Express service next month. The routing will connect the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan with the UK’s largest container port, Felixstowe, with onward sailings to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Hamburg, Germany and Gdansk, Poland.
The service will originate in Qingdao with a stop in Shanghai. The Arctic portion of the route from Ningbo to Felixstowe via Russia’s Northern Sea Route is scheduled to take just 18 days, less than half of a traditional sailing via the Suez Canal.
For now the route will be seasonal until high ice-class containerships can expand the sailing window into winter and spring.
The inaugural voyage, set to depart on September 20, has been fully booked, the company said in a statement.
The low ice-class containership Istanbul Bridge has a capacity of 4,890 standard containers (TEU), small by today’s standards for the Suez and Panama Canals but a significant size for the nascent Arctic service.
Route illustration showing the Arctic Express service from China to Europe. (Source: HNN)
With a September departure the company can capture the European holiday stocking season, but by shortening the voyage time it will avoid the usual congestion during offloading at Europe’s main terminals during peak season.
The company also emphasized that the shorter trip time means vendors can deliver their products faster, reduce inventory costs and accelerate capital turnover. To further speed up the entire voyage the company selected European port destinations with known fast unloading times.
First voyage of its kind
Due to the limited sailing window, roughly from late July until early November, Haijie Shipping plans to operate only one sailing in 2025. But the company announced a full booking and broad industry response from Chinese e-commerce platforms and manufacturers.
The China-Europe Arctic Express is the first kind of container service resembling a more traditional service, with multiple stops in both Asia and Europe. Container shipping via the Arctic during the last several summers relied mostly on single port destinations, akin to tramp shipping.
Last year the Arctic saw 17 container ship voyages, mostly operated by Chinese operator Newnew Shipping Line. The company moved into space in 2023 completing seven voyages. In 2024 it registered 13 sailings transporting around 20,000 standard containers (TEU).
95 percent of all transit cargo via the Northern Sea Route flowed between the two countries.
Of note is that Haijie’s service will bypass Russian ports entirely. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine an increasing share of Arctic shipping, including container operations, focused on service between Russia and China.
Last year 95 percent of all transit cargo via the Northern Sea Route flowed between the two countries.
China provides Arctic sea ice service
Further highlighting China’s interest in expanding shipping via the Arctic, the country’s North Sea Navigation Support Center of the Ministry of Transport has begun releasing a live Arctic sea ice monitoring product together with Tianjin Marine Center Meteorological Observatory.
The product greatly improves the spatial resolution of Arctic sea ice monitoring, identifies waters passable by ships, and provides more accurate data support for the safety of Arctic shipping routes.
It remains to be seen if Haijie Shipping Company will expand its offering in 2026 and if other operators will follow suit. Haijie Shipping launched a China-Europe Express to Wilhemshaven, Germany via the Suez Canal at the end of 2024 which takes 28 days.
The new Arctic routing will be 40 percent faster.
Shipping traffic via the Arctic may expand further in 2026. South Korea for its part has announced plans to enter Arctic shipping with pilot operations next summer. The government said it would establish a special Northern Sea Route division in the Ministry for Oceans and Fisheries.
