The new service is scheduled to commence northbound operations from Brazil during the second half of January 2005 with the first southbound sailing from New York planned for February 14, 2005.

The projected fortnightly service will have fixed day sailing's using three 1,100 TEU vessels. Ports of call include: New York - Norfolk - Savannah - Miami - Kingston - Sao Francisco do Sul (Brazil) - Santos (Brazil) - Sepetiba (Brazil) - Puerto Sucre (Venezuela) - New York. The service will not perform direct calls in Buenos Aires Port.

NYK will call its new trade lane the Atlantic North South service while Hapag-Lloyd will market the service under the name: BEX - Brazil East Coast Express.

Hiroyuki Shimizu, Chairman and CEO of NYK Line (North America) had these words to say: "The South America market is not new for NYK Line and we have a well established and professional infrastructure already in place to assist in the development of our new Atlantic North South service. "