Airplanes are increasingly the must-have bolt on for cash-rich containerlines, the billionaires of the transport sector, making more money than Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google.
The Aponte family controlled Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) has tied up with Germany’s Lufthansa in a bid to acquire the majority of Alitalia successor ITA Airways, seeking an exclusivity period of 90 days to study the deal.
MSC said yesterday the interest in state-run ITA stemmed from “the possibility of activating positive synergies … both in the cargo and the passenger sector”.
During container shipping’s greatest ever boom of the past year other liner giants such as CMA CGM and Maersk have invested in airplanes
Consultantcy Drewry is predicting container shipping will notch up a combined EBIT of $200bn this year, up from its revised 2021 total of $190bn.
