How Quickly Can Carriers Reverse Course? The Risk Behind Suez's Recovery

On 27 February, Maersk announced that selected sailings on its ME11 and MECL services would abandon the Suez Canal and divert around the Cape of Good Hope. The earliest affected departure was scheduled just two days later. On 1 March, the carrier expanded the diversion to every sailing on both services.

That sequence matters again as container shipping returns to the Suez Canal. A container booked on a Suez schedule can still be diverted before it reaches the Red Sea, potentially pushing its arrival back by days or weeks. For cargo owners, the immediate problem is identifying which shipments a carrier’s routing decision affects, how much their ETAs could change and which delivery arrangements need to be revised.

How Quickly Carriers Reversed Course in 2026

The Suez recovery has already produced several reversals. CMA CGM and Maersk both returned services to the canal earlier this year, then redirected sailings around Africa as regional security conditions changed.

Date	Carrier	Services	What changed
20 Jan 2026	CMA CGM	FAL1, FAL3, MEX	Returned the three services to Cape routing after a brief Suez resumption. INDAMEX was not included in the advisory.
27 Feb 2026	Maersk	ME11, MECL	Announced Cape diversions for selected voyages while maintaining Suez as the preferred route for other sailings. The first affected departure listed after the notice was scheduled for 1 March.
1 Mar 2026	Maersk	ME11, MECL	Extended Cape rerouting to all sailings on both services following a deterioration in regional security.

Sources: CMA CGM (20 January 2026); Maersk customer advisories (27 February and 1 March 2026).

Maersk’s 27 February advisory shows why the vessel and voyage number matter. On MECL, Maersk Senang 605E was scheduled to depart Port Tangier on 1 March via the Cape, while Maersk Denver 606E, departing the same port on 8 March, was initially still listed for Suez. On ME11, the carrier redirected Maersk Houston 608W, scheduled from Salalah on 5 March, and Astrid Maersk 609W, scheduled for 12 March, around the Cape.

The February notice therefore left different voyages within the same services on different routings. Maersk described the adjustments as temporary and said it would continue prioritising Suez on other sailings. Its 1 March advisory superseded that selective arrangement, directing all ME11 and MECL sailings around the Cape. A booking report based only on the service’s published routing could have missed the initial exceptions, while a routing list downloaded on 27 February would already have needed revision two days later.

How Much Can a Cape Diversion Change the ETA?

When Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd announced ME11’s return to Suez in February, the published transit-time improvements were substantial but varied by corridor. Westbound transit time from Salalah to Port Said was shortened by 19 days, while the eastbound Valencia-to-Salalah journey was shortened by seven days. For Salalah to Valencia westbound, however, Maersk listed no improvement.

Those differences are important when calculating the consequences of a reversal. A 19-day saving on one corridor does not mean every container diverted back to the Cape will arrive 19 days late. The actual effect depends on the vessel’s location when the change is made, its destination, the revised port rotation and any subsequent adjustments to connecting services.

For an importer, the consequences can extend beyond the ocean leg. A revised arrival date may require new inland transport bookings, different warehouse receiving slots, changes to customer delivery commitments or adjustments to inventory plans. If the vessel has already departed, those arrangements may have been made against the original Suez timetable.

The Risk Window Between Loading and Red Sea Passage

The latest Premier Alliance schedules illustrate how long cargo can remain exposed to a routing change after departure. According to Alphaliner, as reported by Ship & Bunker, ONE Continuity is scheduled to leave Laem Chabang on 19 October, with its first westbound Suez transit planned for 9 November. On the IOX/INX service, ONE Reliability is scheduled to depart Hazira on 22 October and transit Suez on 17 November.

These are scheduled canal dates, not deadlines for carrier routing decisions. Vessels approach Bab el-Mandeb, the southern entrance to the Red Sea, before reaching Suez, and carriers can change their plans earlier. A container loaded in October may therefore remain subject to changing security assessments during the following weeks.

Carrier contingency policies explicitly allow for this. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s Gemini notices condition Red Sea routing on continued regional stability, and MSC’s August return announcement says individual voyages can be adjusted when circumstances require.

For the complete picture of which services are returning and when, see our carrier-by-carrier Suez routing breakdown and the Premier Alliance FE1 update. The operational question here is what happens if a voyage already planned for Suez is redirected after those schedules have been published.

If your team learns about routing changes from carrier advisories and then works out by hand which containers they touch, walk through how ops teams catch vessel and ETA changes at container level across carriers.

A New Security Incident Raises the Stakes

The Red Sea security situation has become more uncertain just as carriers are increasing their use of the canal. FreightWaves reported on 14 October that Houthi forces had carried out missile and drone attacks against Saudi airports and energy infrastructure, including Saudi Aramco’s headquarters, and threatened further strikes.

A separate incident involved a container vessel already transiting the corridor. Le Monde reported on 15 October that the French frigate Languedoc had intercepted and shot down a drone considered threatening while escorting the CMA CGM Champs Elysées through Bab el-Mandeb during the night of 1–2 October. The French military confirmed the interception to the newspaper. The drone’s operator and intentions have not been established.

The report also described concern among CMA CGM seafarers following the incident, including an increase in refusals to transit the area according to the CFDT union. These crew-security concerns add another consideration to the operational and commercial assessments behind routing decisions.

No general closure of the Red Sea to commercial container shipping has been confirmed. Nor has a new network-wide carrier reversal been established in response to the October incidents. The immediate implication for cargo owners is continued uncertainty over whether individual Suez-routed voyages will proceed as scheduled. As the February Maersk example demonstrated, those plans can change on short notice.

What to Do if Carriers Reverse Course Again

The February notices provide a useful model for contingency planning. A change may first appear as a list of affected vessel and voyage numbers, followed by a broader service advisory. The response needs to start with the cargo assigned to those voyages and extend to the downstream arrangements that depend on their arrival dates.

Identify exposed shipments. Pull open bookings and in-transit containers assigned to voyages expected to use the Red Sea corridor. Prioritise those that have not yet passed through the relevant route and could still be diverted.
Match advisories to vessel and voyage. Check carrier notices against the actual vessel and voyage assigned to each container, including any changes caused by rolling or transshipment. Do not assume that all sailings on a service share the same routing.
Recalculate arrival dates. Compare the latest carrier ETA with a voyage-specific Cape-routing scenario. Use the vessel’s current position, destination and updated rotation rather than applying a fixed 19-day or two-to-three-week delay to every shipment.
Review downstream commitments. Identify which warehouse receiving appointments, inland transport arrangements, customer deliveries and inventory plans depend on the original arrival date. Flag time-critical commitments before cancelling or rebooking services.
Check contractual and cost exposure. Review applicable delivery commitments, insurance arrangements and carrier terms. Reconfirm terminal free time and equipment return arrangements against the revised discharge and delivery schedule rather than assuming the original dates or terms still apply.
Track changes after the first notice. Save the advisory date, affected voyages, routing status and subsequent ETA revisions. Maersk’s February example shows why a single advisory check may be insufficient: the initial selective diversion was followed by a service-wide decision two days later.

As more capacity returns to Suez, the number of bookings potentially exposed to a sudden reversal grows. BIMCO reported that weekly container ship capacity transiting the canal had reached 753,000 TEU in the first two weeks of October, just over half the comparable pre-crisis level in 2023. That recovery makes routing uncertainty relevant to a larger volume of scheduled vessel capacity, although the impact of any actual reversal will depend on the services and voyages affected.

The February precedent shows how little time there may be between a carrier’s announcement and an affected sailing. For operations teams, the priority is maintaining an accurate link between each container, its assigned voyage, the latest routing decision and the delivery arrangements that will need to change if the vessel turns back toward the Cape.

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