Ocean Oct 10, 2026 · 8 min read

Carriers push late-October Asia–Europe hikes while the Suez return adds ships

MSC files $4,500 Asia–North Europe rate for 19 October, with the spot market near $3,300. MSC has filed a $4,500 per 40ft container FAK (freight all kinds, a carrier’s base rate for any cargo) from the Far East to North Europe from 19 October, according to The Loadstar. Drewry has Shanghai–Rotterdam at $3,337, after 13 straight weekly falls. We don’t think it sticks. More ships are switching back to the shorter Suez route, and that frees capacity. Linerlytica calls the return “the biggest threat to carrier efforts to reverse the rate slide”. Keep spot quotes short and watch for new surcharges. Our call: Shanghai–Rotterdam stays under $3,600 into early November.

Carriers file $4,500–4,900 Asia–Europe rates for 19 October as the Suez return frees ships
From 19 October, MSC wants $4,500 per 40ft container (FEU) to move cargo from the Far East to North Europe and the West Med. CMA CGM has filed $4,700 to the West Med and $4,900 to the East Med. These are FAK rates. FAK means freight all kinds: a carrier’s published base rate that applies whatever the cargo. All three filings were reported by The Loadstar on 2 October.
The spot market is a long way below. Drewry’s World Container Index (WCI), a weekly spot rate benchmark, put Shanghai–Rotterdam at $3,337 per FEU on 8 October. Shanghai–Genoa was $3,696. The carriers are asking for roughly $1,000 more per box, in a market that has fallen every week since early July.
We don’t think these increases will hold. This is a defensive move to slow the slide. It is not a response to stronger demand. And the main thing pushing rates down, the return to the Suez Canal, is getting bigger every week.

The numbers behind the slide

Asia–Europe spot rates have now dropped for 13 weeks in a row, according to DCN’s report on Drewry’s index. Shanghai–Rotterdam fell 2% in the latest week. The WCI composite, which blends the main east–west lanes, fell 2% to $4,351.
Other indices tell the same story. Xeneta’s short-term index had Far East–North Europe at $3,645 on 7 October, down 2.5% in a week. Far East–Med was $4,007, down 5.9%. Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand says the Med is down 43% since 1 July and North Europe is down 34%, according to The Loadstar. His verdict: “we are not at the floor yet”.
Freightos’s 6 October update had Asia–North Europe at $3,260, with Asia–Med at $3,555. Freightos says the Med has slid back to pre-peak-season levels.
The gap to the filings is wide. MSC’s $4,500 is about 35% above the WCI Shanghai–Rotterdam rate. It is 38% above Freightos’s North Europe figure. And some forwarders are already selling well under the index. The Loadstar reports unsolicited offers from Chinese forwarders of $2,650 per FEU from China to Felixstowe and Southampton. That is not an index figure, but it shows where the bottom of the market is trading.
Even the carriers’ own pricing points down. One large European forwarder told The Loadstar on 2 October: “We’re still receiving reductions on FAK rates for the first half of October.” The same forwarder added: “My feeling is it’s an optimistic push to keep rates up and/or slow the decline”. Carriers cutting first-half FAKs while filing $1,000 increases for the second half is not a sign of a tight market.

Why Suez matters so much

Since the Red Sea attacks began, most Asia–Europe ships have sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid attacks in the Red Sea. That longer trip tied up a lot of ships. Linerlytica estimated the Cape diversions absorbed 5–7% of global container ship capacity, according to a Kuehne+Nagel market update in September. To keep weekly schedules running on the long route, carriers added about 41% more Asia–Europe capacity between May 2023 and May 2025, according to Alphaliner figures cited by Hellenic Shipping News.
Now that capacity is coming back to the market. CMA CGM, Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and Cosco/OOCL have resumed Suez operations, according to The Loadstar. ONE is the latest. Its 8,110 teu ONE Continuity is due to transit later this month. The other Premier Alliance members have not yet followed, citing security. Freightos describes the Premier Alliance as “the last holdout among the three alliances and MSC”, and says it will resume some Red Sea services this month.
The pace is picking up. Containership transits through Suez rose 59% between March and September, from 139 to 221, according to Windward data reported by Hellenic Shipping News. The same report cites Sea-Intelligence saying Suez routing for Asia-Europe services is back to about a quarter of pre-crisis levels. In early September, Sea-Intelligence CEO Alan Murphy said the carriers are “highly likely to shift all of their services” on head-haul trades (the busier, loaded direction) to Suez, according to Kuehne+Nagel.
Each switch shortens the voyage, so fewer ships are needed to run the same weekly service. Hellenic Shipping News put it simply: “every service that switches back to Suez frees ships the route no longer needs”.
New ships are adding to the pile. Nearly 200,000 teu of new capacity arrived in September, with no ships demolished, according to The Loadstar. A teu is a 20ft container equivalent.
Linerlytica also reports that teu-mile demand fell for the first time since January. Teu-miles measure containers multiplied by the distance they travel. Shorter Suez routings cut that number, as did Golden Week blank sailings (cancelled voyages). Linerlytica’s conclusion, quoted by The Loadstar: “The return to the Suez route poses the biggest threat to carrier efforts to reverse the rate slide”. Drewry says almost the same thing: the “faster-than-expected return to the Suez route remains the biggest threat to carrier efforts to support rates”, according to The Loadstar.

What happened last time

Carriers tried the same thing a year ago. In November 2025, mid-month FAK increases did lift Asia–Europe spot rates for a while. Drewry’s WCI Shanghai–Rotterdam rose 8% to $2,193 in late November 2025, according to The Loadstar, as republished by gCaptain. But carriers’ 1 December FAK filings of $3,100 to $4,000 started cracking before they took effect. A freight buyer told The Loadstar: “MSC has already cut its increase in December”.
That is the usual pattern on this trade. An increase can lift rates for a week or two. Then ships need filling, and carriers start discounting. This time the supply side is weaker for carriers, because Suez is releasing ships, not tying them up.
There is one difference worth noting. Rates are higher today than a year ago. Shanghai–Rotterdam is $3,337 now, against $2,193 during last November’s push. On 1 October, Xeneta had Far East–North Europe up about 68% on 28 February, the baseline it uses for before the Hormuz crisis, according to Hellenic Shipping News. In our view, that leaves carriers room to let rates slide further while they defend market share.

Where the pressure lands instead

Our view is that the real fight is not over the FAK. It is over surcharges. Drewry Supply Chain Advisors’ Chantal McRoberts said on a Journal of Commerce webinar on 8 October, reported by The Loadstar: “It’s the surcharges that are causing the biggest consternation.” She pointed to inflated fuel charges and pre-peak season surcharges, and advised shippers to “put up guardrails around contract rates”.
Timing makes this matter. European contract tenders are open now. Xeneta’s Sand says: “For European shippers, tender season is in full force and falling short-term rates are a welcome development”. A low base rate with open-ended surcharges can cost more over a year than a higher all-in rate.
The near-term outlook is flat rather than falling fast. Drewry expects Asia–Europe rates “to remain stable next week”, according to DCN. Blank sailings on Asia–Europe are rising from five this week to six next week, according to the same report. Carriers are trying to hold the line by cutting sailings.
The main risk to our view is security. Hellenic Shipping News reports that Western and some Asian carriers have crossed Bab el-Mandeb with their AIS tracking turned off. It warns that a strike on a Western carrier could push traffic back around Africa. That would turn today’s surplus into a shortage quickly.

What forwarders and shippers should do now

Don’t buy forward at the filed FAKs. Book against spot and index levels, which sit roughly $850–1,250 below MSC’s 19 October filing.

Keep quote validity to customers short. Two weeks is enough while rates move like this.

In tenders, put surcharges in writing. Ask for a fixed fuel formula and a cap on peak-season charges.

Watch the Med. It has fallen faster than North Europe, 43% against 34% since July according to Xeneta. Freightos says it has also seen a sharper increase in Red Sea sailings.

Expect schedule changes as services switch routes. In our view, cut-offs and transshipment plans will shift at short notice, so check them every week.

Keep a Cape plan for urgent cargo. If there is an attack, space and rates will move within days.

Our call

We expect the 19 October FAKs to be cut or quietly discounted before most cargo pays them. Our call is that Drewry’s WCI Shanghai–Rotterdam will stay below $3,600 through the first week of November. We also expect it to be below today’s $3,337 by mid-December, unless a security incident sends ships back around the Cape. If carriers do recover margin this quarter, we think it will come through surcharges in new contracts, not through the base rate.

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