P&O Ferrymasters has signed a strategic partnership with one of Europe’s most established shipping and forwarding companies in a deal that both ‘thinks globally and acts locally’ by transporting consumer goods across Europe into the heart of Greece.
Greece had already become the focus of P&O Ferrymasters’ new intermodal rail service from Northern Europe in early 2006, but the new service with George A. Callitsis Succsrs S.A. guarantees customers greater distribution penetration into Greece’s consumer market.
Callitsis is well established in Greece with 102 years of trading and has strategic offices in Piraeus, near Athens and at Thessalonki, the northern gateway to Europe.  Acting as both an intermodal agent and a sales team for P&OFM within Greece, Callitsis provides valuable market intelligence and commercial advantage that benefits both businesses.
Currently Ferrymasters is sending around 70 round trips every week which includes outward rail traffic to Brindisi and then onward to Patra via ferry, as well as re-loads from Greece to Italy, Spain, Russia, Benelux and UK and Ireland. 
However, Bart Verbeke, P&O Ferrymasters’ Director, Intermodal Services expects at least 20 per cent annual growth because of the partnership.
“This is a strong partnership and we have already received a lot of enquiries from customers wanting to move more from road to rail in this market. The relationship is working very well and the early signs for the future are extremely positive,” says Verbeke. 
The 3,000 kilometre rail link stretches from Ferrymasters’ intermodal hubs as far north as Zeebrugge to Athens and beyond and delivers greater flexibility for European customers who previously had to wait for specialist transport to arrive from Greece for a return journey which often meant missing vital production or manufacturing deadlines.
The service delivers 45 ft pallet-wide containers by using local rail connections from Zeebrugge, Cologne or Paris to Piacenza, near Milan, which is connected to all of Europe’s rail networks. From here it moves to the Italian coastal city of Bari. The movements to Bari are again by local trains, where the containers are shipped by ferry to Patras. Here they are met by Callitsis drivers and trucked to the customer’s chosen destination.
Paul Knoll, Agency and Pricing Director for Callitsis, says: “P&O Ferrymasters has a proven track record in pan European intermodal activity and our strength lies in the understanding of, and the deployment within the Greek market where we have been established for more than 100 years. Together there is a compelling commercial synergy that gives customers confidence in the service now and in the future.”