Project Freedom Just Reopened Hormuz Bookings. Here's What Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, and Kuehne+Nagel Are Telling Shippers This Week.

Two weeks ago, the question every Middle East shipper asked was “is my vessel safe?” After Project Freedom’s announcement and Hapag-Lloyd’s Monday booking reopening, the question has shifted to something operators can actually act on this week: what does my next booking, my next surcharge invoice, and my Q3 capacity plan look like?

Carriers are answering in fragments. Maersk has issued three numbered Middle East operational updates plus additional vessel and port contingency advisories in the past eight days. Hapag-Lloyd reopened Upper Gulf bookings on May 4 while keeping a security deposit reminder in force from April 29. Kuehne+Nagel’s myKN advisories report 34 container vessels and roughly 300,000 TEU still immobilised in the Persian Gulf as of April 28. Pakistan opened six road corridors to Iran under an April 25 statutory regulatory order. Brussels adopted a Middle East crisis Temporary State aid Framework on April 29. No single carrier advisory pulls the threads together, but a shipper booking a Gulf-region container this week needs all of them.

This is the cross-carrier map. What’s reopened, what’s still suspended, and what to revisit before Friday.

What Project Freedom actually changed

On Monday, May 4, President Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States would begin escorting commercial vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz, after dozens of container ships and more than 300,000 TEU of capacity remained immobilised in or around the Persian Gulf. WorldCargo News framed the operation as “Project Freedom” — a US Navy-led extraction effort rather than a reopening of normal commercial transit.

The distinction matters operationally. Escort-led extraction unblocks existing stranded capacity. It does not, on its own, make Hormuz a viable booking lane for new cargo. What it does do is signal enough security improvement for individual carriers to start reopening Upper Gulf service through workaround routes that don’t transit the strait at all.

The carrier-by-carrier reopening map

Hapag-Lloyd — reopened May 4, but routed around Hormuz

Hapag-Lloyd resumed bookings to and from Upper Gulf locations on May 4 using third-party feeder services that avoid the Strait of Hormuz entirely. The structure: cargo is routed via Sharjah as a transshipment hub, with bonded transport between Sharjah and Khorfakkan taking around five days. The reopened lanes serve Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (Dammam), Qatar, Iraq, and the UAE, covering dry, reefer, and in-gauge special cargo. Carrier’s Haulage solutions via Jeddah, in place since the March 27 communication, remain available as a parallel option.

Two operational notes worth attention: feeder services run without fixed weekly schedules, and transit timing depends on regional safety conditions. So while bookings are technically open, schedule reliability is not the same as a pre-crisis lane. Forwarders quoting customers off May 4 reopening news without conditioning on schedule variability will create expectation gaps.

Maersk — still in active reconfiguration mode

Maersk has not announced a parallel Upper Gulf booking reopening. Instead, the May 4 Middle East Operational Update 29 reaffirms a network still in workaround mode. Empty-container returns for import shipments into the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (Jubail), Iraq, and Oman (Duqm) remain restricted to designated depots only. Jebel Ali contract rates are being routed via Khor Fakkan, with rates subject to update between booking and price calculation date. Flex Hub and Flex Route requests via Salalah hub are paused.

The Strait of Hormuz Emergency Freight rate continues to apply for cargo to and from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (Dammam and Jubail), Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman (excluding Salalah). Storage fees activate from day 15 after discharge at storage port. The pattern: Maersk is keeping cost recovery mechanisms intact and is publicly cautious about safe transit, even as Hapag moves first on Upper Gulf bookings.

Kuehne+Nagel — the situational read

K+N’s myKN alert from April 28 quantifies what carriers are working around. The top five container lines have over 30 boxships and roughly 300,000 TEU immobilised in or around the Persian Gulf. The carrier-level breakdown as of that date: CMA CGM 11 vessels, MSC 10, Maersk 6, Hapag-Lloyd 4, COSCO Shipping Lines 3 — a total of 34 vessels per Seaexplorer data, with the largest including CMA CGM Everglade and Galapagos at 15,254 TEU each and MSC Express Rome at 10,114 TEU.

Hapag-Lloyd has extracted just one vessel so far — the 4,253 TEU Tema Express, which reappeared on April 21 after a month-long AIS blackout. That single-extraction data point is the operationally sober counterweight to Project Freedom’s headline announcement: even with US escorts beginning, clearing 34 stranded vessels and the cargo waiting at alternate ports will take weeks, not days.

What’s still costing you, even with bookings reopening

Reopening news travels faster than surcharge withdrawal. Three cost layers remain in force across the carriers issuing reopening advisories:

Hapag-Lloyd security deposit on Gulf cross-border imports. The April 29 reminder confirms the deposit is still applicable. Reopening Upper Gulf bookings does not retire this requirement.

Maersk Strait of Hormuz Emergency Freight rate. Active across UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (Dammam and Jubail), Iraq, and Oman (excluding Salalah). The rate covers alternative routing, storage, charters, and onward movement when safe transit resumes.

Maersk global Emergency Bunker Surcharge. In effect since March 25, applied globally without exception, reviewed regularly. This surcharge is not Hormuz-specific in name, but the trigger event was the Middle East fuel market disruption, and the surcharge persists as long as that disruption does.

The implication for procurement: any rate quoted off “Hormuz reopening” headlines without explicit reference to which surcharges have been withdrawn is incomplete. Ask carrier reps which specific advisories the quoted rate retires and which it does not.

The inland workaround layer: Pakistan’s road corridors to Iran

While the carrier reopening story dominates trade press this week, an arguably more durable operational shift was already in place by late April. Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce issued the Transit of Goods through Territory of Pakistan Order 2026 (SRO 691(I)/2026) on April 25, which came into immediate effect. The order authorises six land corridors connecting the ports of Karachi, Port Qasim, and Gwadar with Iran-bound border crossings in Balochistan at Gabd and Taftan, passing through Turbat, Panjgur, Khuzdar, Quetta, and Dalbandin. The trigger: an accumulation of more than 3,000 Iran-destined containers stranded at Karachi as the Hormuz route became unworkable.

The mechanism: third-country cargo destined for Iran can move by road under a dedicated customs guarantee regime, governed by the Customs Act 1969 and FBR procedures, with encashable bank guarantees equivalent to applicable import levies. The shortest route, Gwadar to Gabd, cuts transit time to the Iranian border to between two and three hours, compared with 16 to 18 hours from Karachi. Officials estimate cost savings of 45 to 55 percent on covered segments. The first export consignment moved from Karachi and Gwadar in mid-April, ahead of the formal SRO notification.

Caveats matter. The corridors run through Balochistan, with infrastructure constraints, security checks, and complex customs procedures. Indian-origin goods are explicitly excluded under a separate May 2025 ban that remains in force. Effectiveness depends on the stability of authorisations, the capacity of the Taftan and Gabd crossings, and the security of road transit. Treat this as a regulated workaround, not a substitute for restored maritime flows.

If your team is reconciling reopening notices, surcharge tables, and inland workarounds across five carriers and a half-dozen advisory pages this week, a 30-minute walkthrough of how cross-carrier visibility consolidates that into one operational view might save the spreadsheet — see how teams set this up.

The European policy footing: METSAF

The European Commission adopted the Middle East crisis Temporary State aid Framework (METSAF) on April 29, in force until December 31, 2026. The framework lets member states subsidise transport, agriculture, fishery, and energy-intensive industries — three of which intersect directly with logistics operators. Two specifics worth flagging for European shippers and forwarders:

First, member states can now offset up to 70% of additional energy costs versus the 50% standard ceiling — relevant for energy-intensive customers whose freight rates have absorbed fuel pass-throughs. Second, individual firms in transport, agriculture, and fishery can access up to €50,000 in fixed-payment aid with minimal administrative burden. For small to mid-sized hauliers and forwarders running European inland legs of crisis-affected lanes, that’s not a future-modelling number; it’s a near-term subsidy worth verifying with national authorities this quarter.

Three decisions to revisit before Friday

1. Bookings tendered for the next 30 days against Upper Gulf locations. If your last quote assumed continued booking suspension, the Hapag-Sharjah-Khorfakkan structure changes the answer. Verify with carrier reps which specific Upper Gulf destinations are reopened, what the schedule cadence actually looks like (feeder services without fixed weekly schedules need real-time confirmation, not template ETAs), and which surcharges still apply.

2. Equipment-return logic across carriers operating in the same lane. Maersk’s empty-return restrictions across UAE/Qatar/Bahrain/Kuwait/Saudi (Jubail)/Iraq/Oman (Duqm) do not necessarily mirror what other carriers are enforcing on the same destinations. Shippers running multi-carrier lanes need a side-by-side of who’s accepting empties where, before the next equipment cycle creates D&D exposure on the wrong carrier.

3. Iran-destined cargo currently sitting at Karachi or Port Qasim. The Pakistan road corridor is a regulated overland flow option that has been live since late April. For cargo affected by the 3,000-container backlog, this creates a practical overland exit while maritime access remains disrupted — but it requires customs guarantee documentation, vehicle availability for Balochistan transit, and coordination with border crossing capacity at Taftan or Gabd. The decision isn’t whether to use it; it’s how to evaluate it against continued maritime delay.

What this week tells you about the next two

Project Freedom did not restore normal Hormuz commercial transit. It created enough security cover for individual carriers to make individual reopening calls on individual lanes, using non-Hormuz routings — Sharjah feeders, Khorfakkan bonded trucking, Jeddah carrier’s haulage. The likely shape of the next two weeks: more carriers may issue similar reopening notices on similar workaround structures, surcharge withdrawals are likely to lag the booking reopenings, and the carriers extracting stranded vessels first will set the rate floor for restored direct service when it returns.

Watch for: MSC’s parallel reopening framework (trade press is already flagging it), CMA CGM’s stance on its 11 stranded vessels (the largest exposure of any carrier), and the first surcharge withdrawal — which will tell you which carrier views Project Freedom as durable rather than provisional.