Chokepoints, Disruption and Resilience

On 19 November 2023 Houthi forces from Yemen seized the Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier sailing in the southern Red Sea, and took the ship to the Yemeni coast. It was the start of a campaign of missile, drone and boarding attacks on merchant ships that the Houthis said was directed at vessels linked to Israel, and which in practice threatened almost any ship using the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the southern entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Within a month the large container lines had decided that the route was not safe for their crews, ships or cargo. From mid-December 2023 most of them sent their Asia–Europe services, and many Asia–US East Coast services, around the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly 3,000–3,500 nautical miles and ten days or more to each voyage.

The diversion was not a closure of the kind the Ever Given caused in 2021 (Chapter 1). The canal stayed open and ships kept moving; they simply moved further. That turned a chokepoint problem into a capacity problem. Each weekly loop needed more ships to keep its schedule, so a large share of the world's container fleet was absorbed sailing longer distances, spot rates rose several-fold in 2024, schedule reliability fell, and carriers that had feared a glut of new ships found a use for them. Container-ship transits of Suez fell from about 583 in October 2023 to about 120 in November 2025 (reported). The Suez Canal Authority's revenue, a record of about $9.4 billion in the year to June 2023, was about $4.6 billion in the year to June 2026, even after a 23% recovery (reported), and a 15% discount for the largest container ships from May 2025 did not bring them back.

The return, when it began, was stop-start. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd's Gemini Cooperation sent its ME11 service back through Suez westbound on 4 February 2026; within a month Maersk had rerouted some services around the Cape again as war with Iran began, and after its AE15 service moved back to Suez in July 2026 other Gemini loops followed (reported). In September 2026 Suez transits were reported about 39% below their pre-crisis level, and in the week of 19–25 October about 305 ships passed, with tonnage still about 46% below (reported). Maersk denied a reported claim by the canal authority that it would fully resume by early December 2026, saying it would return when conditions permitted. Hapag-Lloyd's 2026 guidance had assumed the Red Sea would stay closed all year (company). For the carriers the diversion was a windfall that kept arriving: Maersk raised its guidance for 2026 underlying EBITDA from a range of $4.5–7.0 billion in February to $10.5–12.5 billion in August (company).