Gemini’s India–Europe loop goes back through Suez
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India–Europe’s Gemini loop takes the Suez shortcut, and the spare ships go looking for cargo
Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are taking the Cape of Good Hope out of their main India–North Europe service. On 2 November Maersk announced that ME1 will sail through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal again. The first westbound sailing is the Atlanta Express, voyage 644W, leaving Salalah in Oman on 4 November. The first eastbound sailing is the Savannah Express, voyage 644E, leaving Tangier on 13 November, according to Maersk. Container News gives 12 November for that departure.
The two carriers run ME1 together inside the Gemini Cooperation, their shared alliance network. Hapag-Lloyd sells the same loop as its Indian Ocean Service, or IOS. Maersk’s advisory is plain about the change. The service “will now sail via the trans-Suez route instead of transiting via the Cape of Good Hope.”
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In our view the headline is not the shorter voyage. It is the spare ships. A loop that goes round Africa needs extra vessels to keep a weekly schedule. Take the detour away and some of those ships are freed up. They have to find work somewhere, and right now that means more space chasing cargo that is not growing as fast.
What changes on the water
The new ME1 rotation, from Maersk’s advisory, is Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Salalah, Suez Canal, Tangier, Rotterdam, Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg, London, Algeciras, Tangier, Suez Canal, Salalah and back to Mundra.
That links India’s two biggest container gateways on the west coast with Oman, Morocco and the main North Europe ports. Tangier and Algeciras, either side of the Strait of Gibraltar, are big transshipment hubs. Transshipment means boxes are moved from one ship to another to reach their final port. Salalah does the same job for the Gulf and East Africa.
Maersk says the Suez and Red Sea route is the fastest, most sustainable and most efficient way to move cargo between India and Europe. Hapag-Lloyd’s case is the same. “According to Hapag-Lloyd, the change aims to provide faster connections between Europe and the Middle East,” Container News reported.
Maersk’s advisory gives no new port-to-port transit times for ME1. For scale, Food Business MEA reported in September that the Cape detour added about one to two weeks to Asia–Europe transit times. India sits closer to Suez than China does, so the saving on an India loop is a large share of the whole voyage.
The dates are not locked. Container News wrote: “Both departure dates remain provisional and may change depending on operating conditions.” Maersk says any further changes within Gemini depend on continued stability in the Red Sea, and that crew, vessel and cargo safety comes first.
A slow return, one loop at a time
ME1 is not the first Gemini service back through Suez, and it will not be the last. The carriers have been moving one loop at a time.
In February, a Maersk support page set out plans to send the ME11 service, which links India and the Middle East with the Mediterranean, back via Suez. Maersk said it had kept the intent to resume Suez routing “when conditions allowed.” That attempt did not hold. Tradlinx reported that the ME11 return was suspended in late February. That is the clearest lesson of the past year: these moves can be reversed fast.
The proper restart came in July. Gemini moved its AE15 Asia–Mediterranean service, starting with the Majestic Maersk. Container News called it the first structural step back. The carriers said they were “prepared to return the service to the Cape of Good Hope if conditions deteriorate.” Tradlinx reported that Maersk shares fell more than 5% and Hapag-Lloyd nearly 3% on the day of that announcement. Our reading: investors saw shorter routes as lower rates.
In August, SE4/AE19 went via Suez with immediate effect and added Jeddah calls, Container News reported. In mid-September the carriers said four more services, AE5, AE11, AE12 and ME2, would follow. Maersk said then: “we will offer more efficient transit times for customers.” In late September Hapag-Lloyd confirmed the first SE1 transits. The Umm Qarn was due to leave Tanjung Pelepas on 27 October, with each voyage getting a security assessment and naval protection. Hapag-Lloyd called it a “gradual, service-specific approach” that “does not constitute a full strategic return.”
ME1 fits that pattern exactly. Container News says this announcement “does not indicate a wider return of the entire Gemini network to the Red Sea and Suez Canal.” Each step is presented as small. Added together, a large part of Gemini’s Europe network now runs the short way.
Why the spare ships matter more than the saved days
Here is the arithmetic carriers do not like. A weekly loop needs enough ships to complete one round trip, with one ship leaving each port every week. Make the round trip shorter and the same weekly service needs fewer ships.
Xeneta’s senior shipping analyst Emily Stausbøll made the point earlier this year, when Gemini first moved ME11 back to the Red Sea. She said returning ships of that size to the route would free up 31,000 TEU of capacity (a TEU is one twenty-foot container). “Freeing up this much capacity will not help carriers in keeping freight rates elevated in 2026,” she said. She also noted that India West Coast–Mediterranean spot rates were already down 16% since 1 January at that point.
Newsquawk makes the same argument about this move. Its 2 November note says capacity freed from Cape diversions could push Asia–Europe spot rates lower. It adds that carriers with mostly contract cargo would feel it later, as contracts reprice.
Every service that comes back from the Cape adds to that effect. ME1 is not the biggest loop in the network. But it lands on top of everything that came back between July and October, and the freed ships do not vanish. They get redeployed, laid up or used to fill other lanes, and most of those choices put pressure on rates.
The risk has not gone away
The Red Sea is calmer for merchant ships than it was, but it is not quiet. The 2022 truce in Yemen collapsed in July, and the UN says more than 1,600 people have been killed since fighting resumed, AFP reported. On 2 November, Saudi-led coalition strikes hit Ras Isa port and an oil facility in Bajil, both in Hodeidah province, wounding seven people, Houthi officials said. The coalition called it “a precision operation to neutralize vital resources” used by the Houthis.
None of the reports we read describe a new Houthi threat against shipping. But Ras Isa is on the Red Sea coast, close to the shipping lane ME1 will use once it passes the Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
Stausbøll put the risk simply: “the bigger the ship, the more cargo is onboard and potentially the higher the risk.” In our view, that is why the carriers move one loop at a time, with naval escorts and reviews before each voyage. Reversals happen too: ME11’s Suez transits were suspended in late February, after the Iran war began, Tradlinx reported.
What forwarders should do now
First, re-quote. India and Gulf cargo heading for Rotterdam, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven and London should get shorter transit promises from the westbound Atlanta Express sailing onwards. Shippers who moved urgent cargo to air, or paid for Gulf–Europe sea-air links during the Cape years, now have a reason to look at ocean again.
Second, build the fallback into the paperwork. Quote Suez transits, but write in that a return to the Cape would mean longer transits and possible surcharges. Both carriers say the routing depends on Red Sea stability. That is a warning, not small print.
Third, push on price. Freed capacity on India–Europe and Asia–Europe gives forwarders bargaining power in the next round of contract talks. Spot buyers should see it first. Contract cargo will follow as agreements come up for renewal.
Fourth, watch the transshipment hubs. With Salalah, Tangier and Algeciras on the rotation, cargo for the Gulf, East Africa and West Africa can connect faster through those ports. Check feeder connections, not just the main-line ETA.
Finally, watch the eastbound leg. The Savannah Express leaving Tangier in mid-November is the first eastbound test. If it gets through on schedule, the round trip is proven both ways.
Our call
We think ME1 stays on the Suez route. Unless a merchant ship is attacked in the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden, ME1 will still be routed via Suez on 31 January 2027. Over the same period, we expect India–North Europe spot rates to fall below their early-November level, as ships freed by this and earlier returns look for cargo. If a merchant ship is hit before then, expect ME1 to be among the first loops sent back round the Cape, as ME11’s Suez transits were suspended earlier this year.
Sources
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