Maersk Adds More Jeddah Calls as Gemini Expands Its Suez Return

On 10 August, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd moved another Gemini service off the Cape of Good Hope and through the Suez Canal, and Maersk published the port rotation that goes with it. That AE19/SE4 rotation calls Jeddah twice. A separate Maersk update published the same day put a Jeddah call into the revised AE15 rotation. Counting Maersk’s MECL, three services now have published rotations including Jeddah, although Maersk has only said the MECL call will take effect during August.

The corridor change and the detailed port sequence are not necessarily contained in the same carrier notice. Hapag-Lloyd’s SE4 notice describes the move to the Red Sea route and names the first vessel, but does not list the port calls or voyage numbers. Maersk’s parallel AE19 advisory supplies the full rotation. For operations teams, that distinction matters because the sequence is what determines which downstream schedules and transshipment connections need to be checked.

What changed on 10 August

SE4 and AE19 are the same Gemini service under two carrier naming conventions. Hapag-Lloyd calls it SE4, Maersk calls it AE19, and it connects Asia with Saudi Arabia, the Mediterranean and Europe. The service is transitioning from the Cape of Good Hope to the trans-Suez route, starting with the westbound voyage.

Berlin Maersk operates the first westbound sailing on voyage 628W and the first eastbound on voyage 637E. Hapag-Lloyd names the vessel in its SE4 advisory, while Maersk’s parallel AE19 notice publishes the voyage numbers and full rotation.

The published SE4/AE19 rotation runs Xingang, Qingdao, Busan, Ningbo, Shanghai, Tanjung Pelepas, Jeddah, Suez Canal, Port Said, Tangier, Port Said, Suez Canal, Jeddah, Singapore, Xingang. Jeddah sits on both the outbound and return leg.

AE15 is a separate change with a longer history. Maersk announced the service’s move to the trans-Suez route on 6 July, starting with Majestic Maersk, then announced on 13 July that Jeddah would be added. The full revised rotation and the sailing it begins with were published on 10 August: Madison Maersk voyage 632W, running Qingdao, Kwangyang, Ningbo, Tanjung Pelepas, Jeddah, Suez Canal, Port Said, Damietta, Suez Canal, Colombo, Singapore, Qingdao.

Service	Operator	Where Jeddah sits	First sailing on listed rotation	Published quantified transit-time change
AE15	Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd (Gemini)	Westbound, after Tanjung Pelepas	Madison Maersk 632W	Not published
SE4 / AE19	Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd (Gemini)	Twice, outbound and return	Berlin Maersk 628W westbound, 637E eastbound	Not published
MECL	Maersk	Eastbound only, expected during August	Maersk Denver 627W westbound, Maersk Chicago 624E eastbound for the Suez routing; first Jeddah-call sailing not published	7 days faster westbound, 14 days faster eastbound

Rotations, first sailings and carrier-stated transit-time changes as published to 10 August 2026. Carriers state quantified transit-time changes for MECL only.

The advisory is not always the rotation

AE15 is the clean worked example. A shipper reading Maersk’s 13 July advisory knew a Jeddah call was coming. That notice did not say where Jeddah would sit in the sequence, which sailing would first use the revised rotation, or how it would sit relative to Port Said and Damietta. Those details followed in the 10 August rotation update.

A team relying on the July advisory alone therefore could not tell which voyage would adopt the new sequence or which downstream schedules needed to be re-checked.

SE4/AE19 shows a different version of the same problem. Hapag-Lloyd’s SE4 advisory covers the corridor change and first vessel. Maersk’s parallel AE19 advisory contains the full port sequence, including two Jeddah calls and the first westbound and eastbound voyage numbers.

An inserted upstream port call can move scheduled arrivals at ports behind it, although carriers may also adjust sailing speeds, buffers and berth windows. On SE4/AE19, the downstream sequence includes Port Said, Tangier and Singapore. On AE15, it includes Port Said, Damietta and Colombo. Those are the points where discharge dates and transshipment connections should be re-checked rather than assumed to remain unchanged.

Inland pickup appointments, customer ETAs and import free-time exposure can all be affected by those dates. Demurrage and detention should then be checked against the applicable carrier and terminal rules rather than inferred from the corridor announcement alone.

If your team is re-baselining ETAs by watching carrier advisory queues and waiting for detailed schedules to catch up, walk through how ops teams pick up rotation changes from container-level movement instead.

What to re-check on affected bookings

The voyage number, not only the service name. Whether a box is on the revised sequence depends on which voyage it loads to. SE4/AE19 changes at Berlin Maersk 628W westbound and 637E eastbound. AE15 changes at Madison Maersk 632W.
Discharge date at the port you collect from. Do not assume the date remains unchanged simply because the service name has not changed.
Transshipment relay timing where cargo connects at Port Said, Damietta, Tangier or Singapore. An added upstream call can alter the connection window.
Last free day and free-time milestones. Re-check them against the carrier or terminal once the revised discharge and availability dates are confirmed rather than relying on the dates quoted at booking.
Which leg carries the Jeddah call. On MECL it is planned for the eastbound leg only. On SE4/AE19 it appears on both legs.

The reversion clause has not gone anywhere

This corridor has reversed before, recently. Maersk restored MECL through Suez in January after trial transits, then routed it back around the Cape as security concerns resurfaced. In March the carrier suspended trans-Suez operations on both ME11 and MECL.

Maersk’s AE15 and MECL notices retain explicit contingency language. The carrier states that a change in the security situation may require reverting individual sailings or moving an entire service structurally back to the Cape of Good Hope. Hapag-Lloyd says it will continue monitoring conditions and inform affected customers of further relevant changes, without specifying equivalent triggers.

Per-sailing reversion and structural reversion are different planning events, a distinction worth holding onto from the watch list built when AE15 first moved back to Suez. One booking going around Africa while the service nominally stays trans-Suez creates a different planning problem from the whole schedule resetting.

The security picture hardened over July. Houthi forces returned to direct hostilities with Saudi Arabia after roughly four years of relative calm, and on 20 July declared a maritime embargo against Saudi shipping. Attacks were subsequently claimed against the Saudi oil tankers Encelia and Layla.

The latest rotations deepen Gemini’s use of Jeddah at a moment when Saudi-linked shipping has become an explicit Houthi target. Since late 2023, more than 100 merchant vessels have been targeted in and around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Four commercial ships have been sunk during the campaign, while the Galaxy Leader was seized.

That the expansion is continuing anyway is consistent with what the renewed attacks did and did not do to the earlier return. The rotations keep moving forward. The contingency language remains in place.