Chiquita's Great White Fleet Splits Central America–US Service in December

Chiquita's Great White Fleet will restructure its Central America–United States network from December, according to DynaLiners, splitting its Gulf Coast and US East Coast coverage into two dedicated container loops.

The centerpiece of the change is the withdrawal of Port Everglades from the existing USSE service. The Florida call will transfer to a new Port Everglades–Wilmington service, branded PEWI, which will operate weekly with two container ships of approximately 1,800 TEU each.

For shippers moving refrigerated fruit and general cargo between Central America and the US East Coast, the restructuring promises a cleaner routing: instead of sharing a loop with Gulf Coast calls, Florida and Delaware cargo will travel on a dedicated string.

What are the new rotations?

The revised port rotations, as reported by DynaLiners, will be:

• USSE: Puerto Barrios – Puerto Cortés – Puerto Barrios – Gulfport – Freeport, Texas – Puerto Barrios
• PEWI: Puerto Barrios – Puerto Cortés – Port Everglades – Wilmington, Delaware – Puerto Barrios

Both loops remain anchored in Guatemala. Puerto Barrios and Puerto Cortés keep their roles as the Central American gateways, appearing on each rotation at least once, with Barrios serving as the pivot call that opens and closes each sailing.

The USSE loop retains its US Gulf presence through Gulfport, Mississippi, and Freeport, Texas. The PEWI loop takes over the Florida gateway at Port Everglades and adds Wilmington, Delaware, as the northern terminus.

Why split the network?

The restructuring separates Great White Fleet's Gulf Coast and US East Coast coverage into two distinct services. On a single mixed loop, Gulf-bound and East Coast-bound cargo shares the same vessel, meaning Florida or Delaware shipments previously absorbed the steaming time of Gulf calls, and vice versa.

Two dedicated strings shorten the effective transit profile for each trade. Gulf shippers calling at Gulfport and Freeport no longer wait on East Coast port turns; East Coast shippers through Port Everglades and Wilmington gain a loop purpose-built for that corridor.

The scale of the deployment signals a measured commitment rather than an expansion. Two ships of roughly 1,800 TEU each — about 3,600 TEU of total capacity on the PEWI loop — match a weekly frequency on a short regional rotation, consistent with the feeder-size tonnage typical of Central America–US trades.

For the ports involved, the change redistributes calls rather than eliminating them. Port Everglades keeps its Great White Fleet connection, now as part of PEWI instead of USSE. Wilmington, Delaware, gains a direct Central America link through the new service. Gulfport and Freeport, Texas, retain their positions on the slimmed-down USSE rotation.

What does it mean for shippers and forwarders?

Shippers and forwarders booking Central America–US cargo will need to match destinations to the correct loop from December. Cargo for Florida and the Delaware River region moves on PEWI; cargo for the US Gulf moves on USSE. Both services retain Puerto Barrios and Puerto Cortés as origin calls, so Central American booking patterns at those gateways remain stable.

The split also gives the carrier schedule flexibility. Because each loop now serves a single coast, disruption at one US port — congestion at Port Everglades, for example — no longer cascades into Gulf Coast deliveries on the same string.

DynaLiners, which first reported the restructuring, lists December as the effective month for the change, giving shippers on the current USSE rotation time to adjust bookings before Port Everglades drops off that loop.

The move signals that Great White Fleet sees enough volume on both corridors to justify dedicated weekly strings rather than one combined service — a bet that segmented, coast-specific capacity will serve Central America–US cargo more efficiently from December onward.