Turkey’s Arkas Line has called at the Port of Hamburg using one of its own ships for the first time.

The Wanda A, which has a capacity of 1,604 TEUs, operated the first Arkas sailing of the weekly West Africa Express service, operated by Arkas and Hapag-Lloyd, and arrived at HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder.

According to the Port of Hamburg, Arkas has been booking slots on Hapag-Lloyd’s WAX service since December 2015, but the service has performed so well that Arkas is now also deploying one of its own ships, taking the total number of vessels operating the service to six.

The WAX service begins in Hamburg and calls at Algeciras, Dakar, Lagos (Apapa), Tema, Abidjan and Tangier, before returning to Hamburg via Antwerp.

Arkas Line offers transhipment services in Algeciras to Tincan Island, Casablanca and other destinations in North Africa.