Although the discussion regarding the future of the porthole system persisted through to the middle of the 1990s, the decision has since been taken not to build any more ships of this type. The individual services will be completely converted to integral containers by 2006/2008. One of the first services affected by this has been the porthole service from Australia/New Zealand to the US West Coast. The porthole service from Australia/New Zealand to Europe was converted to integral containers at the end of 2002 and the service from the East coast of South America will be converted around mid-2005.
The most decisive factor for this conversion was the enormous growth in integral containers (see Section 7.3 below) and the accompanying pressure from the market. The disadvantages of the integral container (higher energy consumption during transport below deck, higher maintenance costs, increased handling during transport below deck) are regarded as acceptable.
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