Mediterranean Shipping, founded 1970, is the second-largest container shipping line in the world. When they started out, there was just one vessel. Company founder Gianluigi Aponte named this first ship after his wife, Rafaela, for luck. He also decided to strategically focus his business on scheduled liner voyages, rather than spot fixed trampers. This was how MSC was able to go from one ship to the world's second-largest merchant fleet.

Besides their focus on container-vessels, MSC pledges to keep policy that all cargoes are delivered safely even if that means it takes longer than expected. “SAFETY FIRST” is a strict policy at MSC. Captain Ferraro shared with us an incident where this policy had obvious benefits to their clients:
“Two years ago, we stopped 20 ships because of a storm alert. As the result, none of our ships were lost or damaged. But, amount of paperwork needed for a disaster like that is just too much. ”

Putting safety ahead of punctuality often invites complaints from high-profile clients. However, MSC defends their policy by explaining to these giants that they will lose money whether their shipment is late or damaged, and MSC would prefer to deliver their client’s goods safely. Based on this policy, clients have come to trust that MSC is not the world's 2nd largest operator of container vessels, but the world's Number One operator of safe, accident-free voyages.

MSC has been looking for improvement of Optimum Ship Routeing since one of MSC's fleet was caught up in a tremendous accident as mentioned above. WNI began our relationship with MSC two years ago, having been entrusted with monitoring the status and weather conditions en-route of their Atlantic fleet. Based on this successful arrangement, MSC will entrust WNI with their entire fleet.
MSC expects that their symbolic partnership with WNI will allow them to solidify their reputation as the world's safest container liner.

Illustrating what he strongly feels will be continued growth in the shipping industry, he went on say that vessels with a 14,000TEU capacity are starting to appear, allowing freight forwarders to operate cheaper voyages, and offer client’s more competitive rates.“Companies that aren't following this trend won't be able to compete in the market,” Captain Ferraro said.