Fifty years of container shipping at the Port of Hamburg

The triumphant march of the container, which has revolutionized the worldwide transport industry, commenced in the Port of Hamburg on 31 May 1968. With the ‘American Lancer’, that day a containership berthed at Burchardkai for the first time. She was the first vessel of a new era that has changed the Port of Hamburg for ever.

To mark this occasion, Angela Titzrath, Chairwoman of the Executive Board of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), explains:  “The arrival of the first fully containerised ship 50 years ago opened an important chapter at the Port of Hamburg. The port became an important hub of world trade. As a service provider for the industrial nation of Germany, the Port of Hamburg has made a decisive contribution to growth and prosperity. Over 150,000 jobs in the region depend on the port and a quarter of all German foreign trade is today processed at the terminals’ facilities.”

With the operation of the largely automated Container Terminal Altenwerder, HHLA has set the standard for innovative container handling that is as valid today as it was in 2002. “We will continue to see ourselves as a driver of innovation in the future too in order to assert and strengthen the Port of Hamburg’s competitiveness in a challenging market environment. We will therefore be investing approximately EUR 1 billion in terminal facilities, Intermodal activities and our real estate portfolio over the next five years”, Angela Titzrath explains.

www.hafen-hamburg.de; www.hhla.de