Gulf Transit Times Are Breaking Apart Across Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM

Book UAE or Upper Gulf cargo with three different carriers today and you can get three different contingency structures. Maersk routes Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and Bahrain cargo via Salalah and Khor Fakkan, then by landbridge to Sharjah and onward through its intra-Gulf feeder network, while UAE-local solutions also use Khor Fakkan and Fujairah landbridges. Hapag-Lloyd routes UAE cargo via Fujairah or Khorfakkan and then by landbridge to its final UAE destination, while Upper Gulf cargo continues from Jebel Ali or Sharjah on third-party feeders. CMA CGM’s central import-routing advisory uses bonded landbridges from Khor Fakkan, Fujairah or Sohar to Jebel Ali or Khalifa for UAE-local cargo, with CMA CGM feedering onward for Upper Gulf cargo. The booked destination does not tell you the physical path.

For anyone running a multi-carrier Gulf lane, that is a planning problem with teeth. Transit times, transshipment points, inland clearance locations and the moment a container becomes visible again all differ by carrier on the same booked destination. Quote one carrier’s lead time against another carrier’s box and the number is wrong before the vessel sails.

There is a second problem sitting underneath. Maersk revised its current Gulf position on 11 September. Hapag-Lloyd’s Upper Gulf routing page was last updated on 28 July, with a separate Jeddah transit update published on 21 August and its Middle East live ticker updated again in August. CMA CGM’s central import-routing structure remains the one published on 11 March, although it has issued later operational material for UAE landbridge movements. Comparing them is not comparing three snapshots from the same operational moment.

The Same Region, Three Physical Paths

	Maersk	Hapag-Lloyd	CMA CGM
UAE local cargo	Landbridge options from Khor Fakkan and Fujairah into the UAE. Selected shipments originally booked to Khor Fakkan may discharge at Fujairah and move by bonded landside transport to Jebel Ali	Transship Fujairah or Khorfakkan, then landbridge to the final UAE destination	Bonded land bridge from Khor Fakkan, Fujairah or Sohar to Khalifa or Jebel Ali
Upper Gulf (Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq)	Salalah and Khor Fakkan, landbridge to Sharjah, then intra-Gulf feeder. Explicitly not via Jeddah	Fujairah or Khorfakkan, landbridge to Jebel Ali or Sharjah, then intra-Gulf third-party feeder	Bonded land bridge from Khor Fakkan, Fujairah or Sohar to Khalifa, Jebel Ali or Sharjah, then CMA CGM feedering
Saudi Arabia / Dammam corridor	Saudi import and export cargo continues via Jeddah; Dammam and Riyadh use the established Jeddah landbridge	Dammam or Jubail continue through the established Jeddah landbridge	Jeddah corridor bonded land bridge plus CMA CGM feedering or trucks to Dammam
Upper Gulf final feeder leg	Maersk intra-Gulf network	Third-party feeder services	CMA CGM
Bonded road lead time stated in cited routing advisory	Not stated	About 5 days	Not stated
Feeder cadence stated in cited routing advisory	Not stated	No fixed weekly rotation, subject to transit safety conditions	Not stated
Relevant published routing material	11 Sep 2026	Upper Gulf routing page updated 28 Jul; Jeddah transit update 21 Aug 2026	Core import routing advisory 11 Mar; later UAE landbridge process updates published in August

Routing as published by each carrier. Maersk from Middle East Operational Update 46, 11 September 2026. Hapag-Lloyd from its Upper Gulf reopening advisory, updated 28 July, and its 21 August Jeddah transit update. CMA CGM’s core import-routing structure is from Advisory #9, 11 March 2026; later UAE advisories cover operational landbridge processes.

Where the Routings Actually Diverge

The Jeddah corridor is the clearest split. Maersk’s current update states that cargo booked to Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE now moves via Salalah and Khor Fakkan, then by landbridge to Sharjah, and will not go via Jeddah. It has also paused specified landside movements from Jeddah port to the UAE, Oman and Qatar. CMA CGM’s central published import-routing structure still describes a Jeddah corridor bonded land bridge feeding Dammam, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE, though that routing advisory dates from 11 March. Hapag-Lloyd’s 21 August update says transit shipments discharged at Jeddah can move onward to the UAE and Upper Gulf, but Hapag-Lloyd will no longer arrange the movement from Jeddah to Dammam for the onward connection. Customers are responsible for customs clearance and onward movement.

One corridor, three different operating structures. A forwarder checking a single advisory would reach a different conclusion depending on which carrier’s page they opened: Maersk routes the affected Upper Gulf cargo away from Jeddah, CMA CGM’s central routing advisory still includes a Jeddah corridor, and Hapag-Lloyd allows the Jeddah transit movement but places the onward landside responsibility on the customer.

Feeder ownership changes who operates the final leg. Maersk and CMA CGM both describe the final Upper Gulf leg as their own intra-Gulf or CMA CGM feeder network. Hapag-Lloyd states plainly that its Upper Gulf connectivity runs through third-party feeder services, and that those rotations do not operate on a fixed weekly schedule. On that carrier, the physical operator of the final feeder leg is not Hapag-Lloyd itself.

Only one of these cited routing advisories states a landside duration. Hapag-Lloyd puts bonded transport between Khorfakkan or Fujairah and Sharjah or Jebel Ali at roughly five days. Maersk and CMA CGM both describe landbridge movements but do not state a comparable lead time in the routing material cited here. For two of the three carriers, the road segment that now sits between discharge and the next connection therefore has no stated duration in the advisory a planner is reading.

What You Cannot Build From These Advisories

Put the three together and a door-to-door transit time for an Upper Gulf shipment cannot be assembled from these published advisories alone. The ocean leg reaches a transshipment gateway. The bonded road leg has a stated duration on one carrier out of three. The feeder leg has no fixed rotation on Hapag-Lloyd, while the cited Maersk and CMA CGM routing advisories do not state a comparable cadence. Hapag-Lloyd’s weekly operational updates continue to log Upper Gulf terminal delays on top of all of that; its Week 36 update, last revised on 3 September, reported bad weather affecting terminal operations with delays of up to 24 to 48 hours.

The gap is widest exactly where the consignee is waiting. A box discharged at Fujairah on a Tuesday and gated out at Jebel Ali the following Monday has spent most of that week on a leg that appears on no vessel schedule, under a routing that differs by carrier, at a location that may not be the port written on the B/L.

A transit time that cannot be built from published schedules has to come from the container itself. Walk through how ops teams follow discharge, bonded transfer and gate events across multiple carriers in one view.

When Each Carrier Last Published

The publication gaps matter as much as the content. Maersk has issued 46 numbered Middle East operational updates and revised its position on 11 September. Hapag-Lloyd maintains a live ticker alongside dedicated routing pages: its Upper Gulf reopening page was updated on 28 July, and it published a newer Jeddah transit update on 21 August. CMA CGM’s Middle East newsroom carries 13 numbered advisories, the most recent dated 7 August and covering a dangerous goods surcharge; the central import-routing structure itself remains Advisory #9 from 11 March. CMA CGM has, however, issued later local operational guidance, including an August update covering the process for Jebel Ali-to-Fujairah landbridge shipments.

An unrevised routing advisory is not the same as a confirmed current position. It means the carrier has not replaced that published routing structure. On a corridor that has moved this often, that is a weaker signal than it looks. The scale of the underlying shift is set out in our earlier piece on where Gulf routing has broken.

MSC sits outside the three-carrier table because its newer published routing is origin-specific rather than a like-for-like version of these advisories. On 12 August, MSC said it continued to accept Europe-origin bookings with ports of discharge in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq and Oman. For non-prohibited cargo moving to the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq, MSC said the current routing was via King Abdullah Port, then by truck to Dammam and onward by feeder. That is materially newer than MSC’s 3 March End of Voyage declaration, under which affected Gulf cargo could be discharged at the next safe port with a USD 800 per-container deviation surcharge and require a new booking for onward movement. The March notice remains important history, but it is not MSC’s latest published routing signal for Europe-origin Gulf cargo.

What to Check Before You Quote a Gulf Transit Time

Confirm the transshipment hub per carrier and per destination, not just per region. Salalah, Khor Fakkan, Fujairah, Sohar, Jeddah and King Abdullah Port all appear in current or published contingency structures and they are not interchangeable.
Ask whether the final Gulf leg is on the carrier’s own feeder or a third party, and get the current rotation. Hapag-Lloyd explicitly states that its feeder rotations do not operate on a fixed weekly schedule.
Where the carrier’s routing advisory gives no bonded road duration, get the current lead time from the agent before it goes into a customer quote.
Re-confirm the Jeddah corridor with your specific carrier. Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM currently describe materially different routing or responsibility structures around Jeddah.
Check the cargo type acceptance list separately for dry, reefer, dangerous goods, out-of-gauge and in-gauge. Each carrier restricts differently and the lists do not move together.
Note the date and type of whatever advisory you are reading. A March routing structure, an August local landbridge-process update and a September network update do not carry the same weight.
For Maersk bookings, check any change to the port of discharge and the associated charge stack, which the carrier published under the same 11 September update.

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