Ocean Oct 19, 2026 · 8 min read

Gemini puts a date on the Suez return

Gemini says nearly all its ships go back through Suez in Q1 2027. Hapag-Lloyd’s CEO, Rolf Habben Jansen, expects “more or less all” Gemini services (the Maersk/Hapag-Lloyd alliance) back through Suez during Q1 2027, The Loadstar reported on 19 October. A new China-West Med loop sails from Shanghai on 22 November. Our view: this is the clearest date any top carrier has given, and it is bad news for Asia-Europe rates. Xeneta says Red Sea capacity has doubled since late August, but is still only 48% of the August 2023 level. Forwarders should check routing-linked contract terms now. Our call: Xeneta’s Far East-North Europe average falls below $3,000 per 40ft by end of March 2027.

Gemini’s Q1 Suez date is the start of the Asia-Europe rate slide, not the end
Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have put a date on their full return to the Suez Canal. Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen expects nearly all services in Gemini, the two carriers’ shared network, to sail via Suez during the first quarter of 2027, The Loadstar reported on 19 October.
“if there is no change, I would expect that more or less all of our services will be back through Suez,” he said. He added that there may be one or two exceptions.
At the same time, the partners are redrawing their Asia-Mediterranean network from the second half of November. The first sailing on a new China-West Med loop leaves Shanghai on 22 November.
Our view is simple. This is the clearest timetable any top-five carrier has given for leaving the Cape of Good Hope route. Once Gemini goes, others will feel pressure to follow. The slow, careful return has so far kept rates from falling hard. A Q1 finish line means the bulk of the extra capacity lands in the weakest part of the year, after Chinese New Year. We expect Asia-Europe spot rates to fall further from here.

What Gemini is changing

The Loadstar’s report sets out four changes to the network, which runs on a hub-and-spoke model. That means big ships run between a few large hubs, and smaller feeder ships carry boxes on to other ports. Moving a box from one ship to another at a hub is called transhipment.

A new hub-only loop, Maersk AE18 / Hapag-Lloyd SE5, will link China and the West Med via Suez. It calls Shanghai, Xiamen, Tanjung Pelepas, Algeciras, Tangier, Algeciras and Xiamen. The first ship is the 13,100 TEU Maersk Edirne, leaving Shanghai on 22 November. (A TEU is a twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard container measure.)

One Asia-North Europe loop will replace Tangier with Rotterdam as its first European call.

One Asia-Mediterranean loop will drop its westbound Tangier call for Port Said and add a call at Salalah in Oman before the canal.

A fourth Asia-Med loop adds Damietta in Egypt and swaps Shanghai for Nansha.

This builds on earlier moves. Maersk said on 16 September that four more joint services, AE5, AE11, AE12 and ME2, would move from the Cape to the Suez Canal, Food Business MEA reported. In July, AE15 was the first to switch, with Berlin Maersk making the first westbound sailing via the Red Sea. The same report notes that the Cape route adds about one to two weeks to Asia-Europe transits.
Habben Jansen said the return has been phased on purpose. “if we go back, we will do it step by step and in a managed way,” he told The Loadstar. The aim, he said, is to manage the load on hubs and ports in Europe and the Mediterranean. “So far, that has not caused too many problems, it’s been going well,” he said.

How much capacity is still to come

Most of the return has not happened yet. Two measures point the same way.
Xeneta, the freight rate data company, says weekly scheduled capacity crossing Bab el-Mandeb was 448,273 TEU on 5 October. Bab el-Mandeb is the strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, the way in and out for Suez traffic to Asia. That figure has doubled since 27 August. But it is only 48% of the 930,679 TEU offered in August 2023, before ships began going round Africa.
Shipping analyst Lars Jensen gave The Loadstar a lower figure on a different basis. “The latest numbers, at least I have, is we are roughly 30%-35% normalised across the market for the Suez routing,” he said. He said the return is slightly further along on the backhaul (the lighter return leg, Europe to Asia) than the headhaul (the busy Asia to Europe leg).
Jensen also said carriers have moved more slowly than he expected. He said he was “positively surprised at the restraint we see from the carriers in terms of not making it a fast transition.”
How big is the full release? A year ago, Sea-Intelligence modelled a full Suez return. Port Technology International reported on 24 October 2025 that it “would free approximately 2.1 million TEU of nominal capacity.” That is about 6.5% of the active global fleet. The reason is that each rerouted Asia-Europe or Asia-US East Coast service needs around four extra ships per round trip to keep a weekly schedule. When the voyage gets shorter, those ships become spare.

Why we think rates fall from here

Rates on Asia-Europe are already far below the transpacific. Xeneta’s market averages on 16 October were:

Far East-North Europe: $3,568 per FEU (forty-foot unit), up 2.5% in a week

Far East-Mediterranean: $4,165 per FEU, up 3.2%

Far East-US East Coast: $11,495 per FEU, down 0.1%

Far East-US West Coast: $8,296 per FEU, down 0.2%

Xeneta senior shipping analyst Emily Stausbøll said: “Spot rates into the US East Coast are more than three times those into North Europe, but carriers cannot sustain a spread this wide for long.” She expects the gap to narrow mainly because US rates fall, with European rates firming a little.
We agree on the US side, but we think the small Europe gains will not last into 2027. They come after weeks of decline, not a new upswing. Drewry’s World Container Index showed Shanghai-Rotterdam at $3,485 and Shanghai-Genoa at $3,835 per 40ft in late September, gCaptain reported on 24 September, down 4% and 5% on the week. Suez containership transits that week were 48, up from 41.
Stausbøll was clear about the weight of the Red Sea story: “Shippers must view this latest development in Red Sea services with the highest importance because it will be one of the drivers for ocean container shipping markets in 2027.”
There is one brake. Stausbøll said: “The capacity released into the fleet will also be partially absorbed by the current congestion in global ocean networks, at least for now.” Carriers are also blanking sailings, meaning they cancel scheduled voyages to cut supply. Xeneta counted 58,200 TEU blanked on Far East-US West Coast and 35,500 TEU on Far East-US East Coast in one week. Stausbøll called that “The telling signal”. We expect the same tool to appear on Asia-Europe once Suez capacity builds up.

What it means for forwarders

Routings change in weeks, not months. From late November, Gemini’s port calls and hub choices shift. Algeciras and Tangier take on hub work on the new AE18/SE5 loop. Port Said, Salalah and Damietta gain calls. Cut-offs, connections and feeder links will move with them. Check every live booking that crosses late November.
Transit times shrink. About one to two weeks comes off Asia-Europe voyages on a Suez routing, by the estimate Food Business MEA reported in September. That helps inventory planning. But it also means quotes and service promises built on Cape transit times will be wrong. Shippers will notice.
Ports in Europe may bunch up. Sea-Intelligence’s 2025 model found that an instant return would double Asian arrivals in Europe for two weeks. Even an eight-week phased return would lift volumes about 10% above historic highs, Port Technology reported. Gemini’s slow approach is meant to avoid that. Still, we think the run-up to Q1 is when European yards will be most stretched. Rotterdam’s own figures show the strain. The port’s nine-month numbers show container TEU up 0.1% but transhipment down 20%, Container News reported on 19 October. The report linked the drop to capacity limits at Rotterdam’s deep-sea terminals. Hinterland container volumes rose 7.2% and full imports 8.9%. Barge, rail and truck capacity out of Rotterdam is worth booking early.
Contracts need a read now. Many 2026 deals carry Red Sea or Cape-related surcharges, or rates priced on longer transits. Before 2027 tenders close, ask customers which clauses depend on routing. Agree in writing what happens to surcharges when the ship goes through Suez.

The risk that stops it

Habben Jansen’s forecast starts with “if there is no change”. The region is not calm. UKMTO (UK Maritime Trade Operations, which tracks attacks on ships) reported that a skiff with seven people fired two shots at an LNG tanker about 140 nautical miles southeast of Al Mukalla, Yemen, Türkiye Today reported on 18 October. The tanker’s guards fired warning shots and the skiff turned away. On 18 October, a tug northeast of Khor Fakkan in the UAE was struck by two unidentified projectiles. UKMTO said: “One minor casualty has been reported.” Ashore, fighting between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has intensified across multiple fronts, with coalition aircraft bombing Houthi sites, Al Jazeera reported on 18 October.
None of these incidents hit a container ship. But Gemini’s plan depends on the corridor staying open. A serious attack on a box ship in the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden would pause the return again, and rates would jump.

Our prediction

If the Red Sea stays quiet, we expect Xeneta’s Far East-North Europe market average to fall below $3,000 per FEU by end of March 2027. We also expect at least one other top-five carrier outside Gemini to publish its own Q1 or Q2 date for a full Suez return before the end of this year. The window for forwarders to lock routing-linked contract terms is the next eight weeks.

Sources