A fast-growing Dubai-based liner company with growing involvement to the Russian trades is achieving rapid growth.
Newcomer Mountain Air Shipping has been headed by shipping executive Alexander Isurin, a former president of Russian container shipping company Fesco.
Isurin took on the role of chief executive officer of the United Arab Emirates company in October, according to his LinkedIn profile.
That followed several years when he had previously heading Russian liner player Fesco and the Delo Group’s inter modal freight subsidiary TransContainer.
Those connections may have helped Mountain Air “substantially” grow in 2022. The company's website boasts a fleet of 14 vessels which delivered more than 100,000 teu.
But a Mountain Air employee who answered the phone Wednesday said that Isurin is no longer working for the company.
The company has appointed Jsolt Katona as CEO, although it not confirmed that is an executive with a similar name (spelt Zsolt) that headed of AP Moller-Maersk’s eastern Europe division.
TS Lines sells feeder
Mountain Air is also playing down reports it purchasing a brace of feeder container ships from Taiwanese operator TS Lines.
The 1,756-teu TS Laemchabang and TS Haiphong (both built 2016) are reported sold to Middle East buyers for region of $23.5m per vessel.
However a representative of the company's commercial department said in a brief email that the company did not intend to purchase the vessels.
Taipei-based TS Lines is also reported to have sold a third ship to a Middle East buyer
The 1,574-teu TS Hongkong (built 2006) has been sold for a low $8m, having been on the market for several months, say brokers.
The three sales would take the number of boxships sold by the Asian liner company to nine ships this year.
TS Lines declined to comment, but has already hived off a handful of vessels to European buyers including MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co and Germany’s HS Schiffahrts.
Filling Russia's void
Mountain Air appears to be emerging as one of several operators of services to Russian ports after western lines scaled back their own services.
The company advertises services connecting Novorossiysk in the Black Sea with Turkey, Egypt and India, as well as from China and South Korea to Vladivostok and Vostochny.
In February, the company hooked up with Delo Group’s Russian multimodal transport operation Ruscon to launch a liner service between Istanbul and St Petersburg.
That service is operated by a small feeder vessel, believed to be the 700-teu Sasco Niva (built 2002), belonging to Delo-controlled Sakhalin Shipping.
Several Russian-backed operators have stepped up services to Russin including Transit, Safetrans, OVP Shipping, and Newnew Shipping (Torgmoll).
Others include established players like Russian carrier Fesco which recently launched a monthly China – St Petersburg service under the name FESCO Baltorient Line.
MSC is the only major European liner operator to retain a considerable presence in the Russian trades.
It has feeder operations in all three Russian gateways and accounts for most capacity deployed in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea.
Other leading European carriers have withdrawn completely from the market.
