MSC Durban Contact Details

Check which MSC you want first. MSC in Durban is Mediterranean Shipping Company, a container shipping and logistics business. MSC Cruises is a different operation with different contacts, and a booking query sent to the shipping line goes nowhere.

MSC South Africa, Durban

• Telephone: +27 31 360 7911, dialled locally as 031 360 7911
• Email: za031-sa.distribution@msc.com
• Durban is the MSC South Africa head office
• Branches: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, East London and Pretoria

MSC states that it has served South African ports for over 50 years, employs roughly 2 000 people in the country and is the largest user of its port infrastructure. Durban anchors that network, which is why the head office and the busiest container operation sit in the same city.

Before you phone about a container

Have the bill of lading number or the booking reference and the container number. A shipping line traces everything by those, and a query without one takes far longer than the call itself. If you are the consignee rather than the shipper, have the invoice or the release reference too.

• Import and export documentation, release and delivery orders run through the local office
• Vessel schedules, tracking and much of the documentation can be handled without a call through myMSC, the customer portal
• Rate and booking enquiries go to the local commercial team rather than to a global number

The e-business and myMSC routes are worth setting up if you ship regularly. Most of the questions that generate telephone calls, including where a container is and whether a document has been issued, are answerable there directly.

What MSC South Africa handles

Beyond standard container shipping, MSC publishes South African capability in automotive logistics, cold storage, intermodal transport, project cargo and thermal liner services, with named cargo focus on fruit, minerals and wine. Those are the country big export flows, and knowing which desk your cargo belongs to shortens the routing.

Global head office

• MSC headquarters: +41 22 703 8888, info@msc.com
• Address: Chemin Rieu 12, 1208 Geneva, Switzerland

Use Geneva only for a group-level matter. Anything about a shipment moving through a South African port belongs with the local office, which is the one with access to the local systems and the port relationships.

Reporting a concern

MSC publishes a Speak Up Line alongside a code of conduct on its own site, which is the route for reporting misconduct rather than a commercial complaint. On the commercial side, note that shipping is an industry where invoice-fraud and container-release scams occur; never pay a release, demurrage or detention charge into an account supplied in an email without confirming the details by telephone on the published office number.