Who will return first to the Suez Canal?

With the whole world talking about the Israel-Palestine ceasefire announcement, it’s expected that supply chain stakeholders will be eyeing any immediate impacts to now well-established routing past the Cape of Good Hope.

"After all, expectations for Europe - Middle East, Transatlantic and Asia - Europe trades have long since shifted," says the latest update from eeSea.

"The initial thoughts from our analysts echo the general sentiment that it’s far too early to expect any formalised changes in the next few weeks. The news may have rung a little differently six months ago when carriers were still struggling to adjust to the new capacity demand necessitated by longer transit times. Now that a semblance of manageable reliability, capacity stability and favourable profits have been reached, it’s no wonder that they aren’t clamouring to jump back in."

While Houthis too have announced a ceasefire on attacks on non-Israeli ships, there is also the reality that carriers are on the cusp of actualising carefully planned network overhauls for 2025's new alliances, the update added. "Restructuring the vessel schedules for Premier Alliance and the Gemini Cooperation that are slated to begin as early as February 1 would be a massive undertaking that requires full confidence in political reparations, along with a willingness to shoulder a short-term loss in capital gains."

Who will go first?
If any global players were to return to the Red Sea, who would the first likely candidates be? "Back in November 2024, we discussed some flip-flopping witnessed between Suez Canal and Cape of Good Hope transit preferences on scheduled voyages for major non-alliance services. Most notably, CMA CGM strongly suggested the possibility of a return to the Suez Canal in the new year on the Transatlantic CMA - INDAMEX where they are currently partnered with COSCO and OOCL. After several weeks of close observation, our team ultimately concluded it would be highly unlikely to see an organised shift amongst carriers until mid-late 2025.

"Given the ceasefire announcement, the relative willingness of both CMA CGM and COSCO to float the possibility of a return these past few months, and the fact that the highly popular CMA - INDAMEX service will survive the alliance reshuffle and remain as is - we would keep an extra close eye on her schedules."

In another case for these partners - the CMA CGM TITUS which has been deployed to the CMA - MEDEX since August 2022 - was the only vessel out of the 11 slot service to share a Suez transit in her schedules in the final months of 2024 and to actually complete these transits on November 23 and December 31, the update added.

As for the alliances, the only service to utilise the Red Sea passage on a regular basis has been the OCEAN - MED5. "We established earlier this week in our coverage of Ocean Alliance’s Day 9 announcement that despite COSCO’s stated intent (ie the very last section of their announcement) to better serve client interests through transshipment options in the region, the MED5 was still the only service on their Day 9 Product brochure that displayed the existing Suez passage on its mapped route."

It is also crucial to point out that there are already existing plans to utilise the Suez Canal on three Europe - Middle East services in the Gemini Cooperation lineup. "While we cannot definitively say who will be the first to formally dip their toes back in this water, the relatively generous timing for Ocean Alliance’s new Day 9 network roll-out in April and previous tests from CMA CGM, OOCL, and COSCO on their partnered non-alliance services suggest we could see an early appearance on these schedules first. However the next few weeks unfold, our team will continue to keep a watchful eye on long-term schedules and customer advisories for early signals."