A Hundred Big Ships Are Back on Suez, but Many Still Round the Cape Empty: Recalculating Europe Costs on a One-Way Basis
Vessel-tracking data compiled by Lloyd's List shows a shift that every shipper on the Europe trade should note: since early September, more than 100 containerships of 16,000 TEU and above have transited the Suez Canal. That is more than the whole of 2025, when only eight such ships made the passage, and more than the first eight months of 2026 combined. October has been faster still. By 20 October, 15 vessels above 20,000 TEU had passed through, including CMA CGM PANTHEON (24,232 TEU), COSCO Shipping Virgo (20,119 TEU) and MSC Irina (24,232 TEU).
At the service level, this is no longer a trial. An Alphaliner survey covering 15 September to 15 October found that 24 of the 46 Far East-Europe direct services operated by the ten largest carriers were again routing via the Red Sea. Those services represent about 5.5 million TEU of capacity, or 63 percent of the 8.7 million TEU deployed on the trade. By sub-trade, roughly 70 percent of Far East-Mediterranean capacity is back on the Red Sea route against 58 percent for Far East-North Europe, a gap of 12 percentage points.
That 63 percent figure is easy to misread. It describes capacity at network level. For any single shipment, the question that matters is which way this particular vessel is going, and whether the return leg follows the same path. Several carriers still run a one-way arrangement: cargo is carried westbound through Bab el-Mandeb, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, while the ship returns empty around the Cape of Good Hope. Only Evergreen and ZIM remain fully on the Cape route.
The consequence of one-way transits shows up in schedules rather than in rate sheets. A round voyage that took 13 weeks around Africa can be compressed to 11 or even 10 weeks via Suez, which adds effective capacity. But when only half the voyages are shortened, the proforma rotation goes out of phase. Ships on the same service arrive early or late in an unpredictable pattern, berth windows spread out, and every connecting and inland leg has to be re-planned. This is part of why Europe rates have not collapsed in the way many expected after more than a month of reopening.
Ningbo Shipping Exchange data this week illustrates the same inertia. The NCFI composite edged up 0.5 percent to 2,509.4 points. The Europe index fell 1.7 percent to 1,516.9, the East Mediterranean index dropped 4.9 percent to 1,473.5 and the West Mediterranean index slipped 0.6 percent to 1,908.6. Rates are easing at the margin, but carrier invoices are moving the other way: since late October, MSC has applied a piracy risk surcharge (PRS) and a Suez Canal surcharge (SCS) at 45 ports on its Suez services. A little off the base rate and a little back on surcharges means the per-container cost a shipper actually pays moves far less than the index suggests.
For shippers on the Europe trade, three things are worth doing now rather than in December.
First, confirm the routing, not just the booking. Do not stop at vessel, voyage and ETD. Ask whether this particular voyage is a two-way Suez transit or a one-way one, and how the return leg is routed. Different voyages within the same service can differ. Plan on an arrival window of plus or minus three days rather than a single date.
Second, break the quotation down to line items. Base ocean freight, PRS, SCS and destination charges should be listed separately, and the destination should be checked against the list of 45 surcharge ports. Rotterdam and Genoa can carry quite different cost structures on the same trade lane; budgeting on a Europe average pushes the error onto your own P&L.
Third, build enough buffer into the inland leg. European inland capacity is tight ahead of Christmas even in a normal year. With arrival dates uncertain, rail and truck slots should be booked against the latest plausible arrival. For cargo that needs secured stowage and lashing plans, such as non-ferrous metals, avoid month-end sailings, which are the first to bunch up when earlier voyages run late.
The direction of travel on Suez is not in dispute. But a trend gives a probability, not a certainty, for any individual shipment. Translating "63 percent of capacity has returned" into which route my cargo takes, which surcharge line it lands on, and how many days late the arrival might be is the actual work for this quarter.
