Ocean Oct 16, 2026 · 8 min read

Suez container traffic passes half of pre-crisis levels as the Houthi war with Saudi Arabia escalates

Suez is back past halfway. Book for it, but keep a Cape plan. Container capacity through the Suez Canal averaged 753,000 TEU a week in early October, BIMCO says, citing Clarksons. That is more than half the 1,457,000 TEU of the same weeks in 2023, and the first time since the Houthi attacks began. Our view: the return is now real and hard to stop. BIMCO estimates Cape routing added about 10% to ship demand, and “That increase is now reducing quickly.” Expect cheaper Asia–Europe 2027 contracts and early, bunched arrivals. Our call: ONE or HMM announces a Suez routing within six weeks, unless a ship is hit.

The Suez return is past halfway and now has its own momentum. The Houthi war is the only thing that can stop it.
Container ships carried an average of 753,000 TEU a week through the Suez Canal in the first two weeks of October 2026. TEU means twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard way to measure box capacity. The figure comes from Clarksons Research, cited by BIMCO, the international shipowners’ association. In the same two weeks of 2023, before the Houthi attacks on shipping began, the canal handled 1,457,000 TEU a week.
That makes this the first time since the crisis began that Suez has passed half of its old container traffic. In BIMCO’s words, “this is the first time that transits have exceeded 50% of pre-disruption levels.” The quote is from Niels Rasmussen, BIMCO’s chief shipping analyst.
Here is our view. The Suez return is no longer a trial. It has reached the stage where carriers are redesigning networks around it, and that is slow and costly to undo. Only a direct hit on a merchant ship, or a credible threat of one, would send the big lines back round Africa. The Houthi war with Saudi Arabia is escalating fast, so that risk is real. But the default for 2027 planning should now be Suez, with the Cape as the backup, not the other way round.

How fast the ships came back

For most of the crisis the canal was close to empty of container ships. Lines began diverting round the Cape of Good Hope in December 2023, BIMCO says. From early 2024 to mid-2026, Suez container capacity ran at about 11% of the same weeks in 2023.
The turn came in July. On 6 July 2026 the Gemini Alliance, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s partnership, said its AE15/SE3 Asia–Mediterranean service would go back through Suez, BIMCO reports. Gemini has since announced five more services. Members of the Ocean and Premier alliances, and MSC, have also changed routings. BIMCO counts 16 services changed since early July.
The share tells the story best. In early October, 36% of container capacity that had to choose between Suez and the Cape went through the canal, BIMCO says. From 2024 to mid-2026 that share averaged 8%. Before the attacks it was about 80%. So the canal has about four and a half times its crisis-era share but less than half its old one.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence (LLI) sees the same trend in its monthly count. The canal had 1,228 transits and 106.3m dwt (deadweight tonnes, a measure of how much ships can carry) in September. That was the second month in a row above 100m dwt, and the busiest month since December 2023. Container capacity through the canal reached 2.19m TEU in September, up 40% on August, LLI says. In September 2023 it was 5.9m TEU. Total canal traffic is up 21% on a year ago but still 39% below pre-crisis levels.
The consultancy Linerlytica, quoted by Seatrade Maritime on 14 October, counts more than 50 ships of 4,000 TEU or more transiting the Red Sea each week. It says “ONE and HMM will be the next carriers to join the Suez influx”. That would leave Evergreen, Yang Ming and Zim as the main lines still going round the Cape. Linerlytica expects the lines to move “with a full-scale return to the Suez route expected by the first quarter of 2027.” Seatrade also reports that all four major alliances now offer westbound Asia–North Europe services via Suez.

The war has not gone quiet

The return is happening while fighting gets worse on Yemen’s coast. That is what makes this an uneasy milestone.
This week Houthi missiles hit the Al-Maashiq presidential compound in Aden, the Yemeni government’s interim capital, AFP reported on 16 October via Business Recorder. Government military sources said at least four people were killed and 10 wounded. An unnamed government minister told AFP the attack “hit a command centre for Yemeni government forces with three missiles” and “another for Saudi-led coalition forces at the complex with two missiles”. AFP says it was the first strike on the complex “since Yemen’s civil war flared back to life in July.” The Houthis launched an offensive in September and have taken territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
Saudi Arabia is being hit directly. The Saudi-led coalition says the Houthis “had attacked Riyadh’s airport 20 times this month,” AFP reports. A strike on the airport on Saturday killed 13 people and wounded about 300. FreightWaves reported on 14 October that “The airport remains closed until at least October 17”. Riyadh blames Tehran. “We think that the escalation by the Houthis at this latest stage of the conflict is encouraged by Iran,” said Dr. Rayed Krimly, deputy minister for public diplomacy at the Saudi foreign ministry, AFP reports.
At sea, the signal is mixed. LLI reports that “A Chinese-operated containership was fired upon off Yemen on October 7.” All crew were safe and the Houthis did not claim it. LLI’s overall verdict is that “Red Sea recovery is gathering pace, but that recovery is uneven.” FreightWaves, writing on 14 October, says “no broad closure of the waterway has been confirmed.”
Our reading is that, so far, the Houthis are aiming at Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government, not at global container lines. LLI notes the group has declared a blockade of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports. Our reading is that carriers are treating this as a Saudi problem rather than a threat to ships passing through, which is why they keep sailing.

Red Sea forecasts have been wrong before

Red Sea forecasts have a short shelf life. In March 2026, after US and Israeli strikes on Iran, AJOT reported Xeneta’s warning that the strikes would “shatter hopes of a largescale return of container shipping to the Red Sea in 2026”. Plans to return, it said, “will be shelved until the security situation becomes clearer”. Four months later Gemini announced its first Suez service, and by October the canal had passed half its old container traffic.
The lesson cuts both ways. Carriers came back faster than almost anyone expected. They could leave just as fast if a container ship is hit. A large box ship struck in the southern Red Sea would undo the past three months in a few weeks.

What it means for forwarders

The first effect is capacity. Rasmussen puts it plainly: “We estimate that rerouting away from the Suez Canal increased global container ship demand by about 10%.” He adds: “That increase is now reducing quickly.” Shorter voyages need fewer ships for the same weekly service. In March, Xeneta estimated that the longer Cape routes were absorbing about 2.5 million TEU of global capacity, AJOT reported. Much of that is now being freed up.
That matters for the 2027 tender season, which is starting now. FreightWaves says shippers may resist locking in today’s elevated contract rates because of growing Red Sea transits and new ship deliveries. Spot rates are a separate story, but LLI says the Suez return is helping to push down Asia–Europe spot rates as capacity is freed up. Our view is that forwarders should push for shorter contract terms or index-linked pricing on Asia–Europe. Do not sign a full year at a rate that assumes the Cape.
The second effect is reliability, and it will get worse before it gets better. When a service switches to Suez, ships on the new route overtake ships still on the old one. Xeneta told Seatrade in September that “a Suez arrival lands up to 14 days early while Cape tonnage is still at sea on the old schedule.” Xeneta’s chief analyst Peter Sand told Seatrade that congestion at discharge ports “is certain to happen as the phased transition develops.” The time saving is large. Seatrade reported that Yantian to Rotterdam averaged 41 days on nine Cape services, against 27 days for a vessel routed via Suez.
BIMCO says the return has coincided with more port congestion in Asia. Seatrade reports that congestion has eased since Golden Week, China’s early-October holiday. For forwarders, expect early arrivals that hit free-time clocks, missed warehouse slots, and rolled bookings when a string is re-sequenced. Check transit-time promises in quotes and customer contracts. A 27-day schedule quoted against a 41-day one sets expectations a single diversion could break.
The third effect is insurance and surcharges. Carriers that return will want to drop or cut their Red Sea and contingency surcharges more slowly than their costs fall. Ask for those surcharges line by line. Ask each carrier to say in writing what happens to the surcharge and the transit time if the service goes back round the Cape.

Our call

Our prediction: ONE or HMM will announce at least one Suez routing within six weeks, by the end of November. Suez will carry more than half of the container capacity choosing between Suez and the Cape by the end of January 2027. Both calls fail if a merchant ship is seriously damaged in the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden before then. If that happens, we expect at least one major alliance to divert a service back round the Cape within a fortnight.

Sources