ContainerSignal Daily: Red Sea capacity doubles in six weeks

Carriers have doubled the container capacity they offer across Bab el-Mandeb in six weeks. Xeneta puts weekly scheduled capacity crossing the gateway to the Red Sea in at least one direction at 448,273 TEU on 5 October, double the level on 27 August and equal to 48% of the 930,679 TEU offered in August 2023, before the Cape of Good Hope diversions began. The same week brought a congressional move to strip COSCO ships of reduced US inspection treatment, a Federal Maritime Commission proposal for US$200,000 fees on Spanish-flagged ships, and an admission from the UK Maritime Trade Operations that most vessels attacked in the Strait of Hormuz never report the incident.

Today’s Signals

Trade Routes

Xeneta’s weekly market update, published on 16 October, measures offered capacity on services transiting or about to transit the Red Sea rather than tonnage actually sailed. On that basis the return has moved from a trickle to a strategic shift: 448,273 TEU a week scheduled across Bab el-Mandeb, against 930,679 TEU in August 2023. Emily Stausbøll, Xeneta’s senior shipping analyst, said only carriers can explain what changed in their security assessments over the six weeks, and that the released capacity will have a material effect on rates and services into 2027. She also noted that post-peak-season timing makes October a logical month to ramp up, and that congestion in the wider network will absorb part of the released capacity, at least for now.

A second measure points the same way. BIMCO, citing Clarksons Research data, reported that an average of 753,000 TEU of container ship capacity passed through the Suez Canal each week in the first two weeks of October 2026, against 1.46 million TEU in the same period of 2023. The canal carried 36% of the container ship capacity that was routed either through it or around the Cape of Good Hope in those two weeks, up from an average of 8% between 2024 and mid-2026, and still below the 80% share seen before the attacks. Carriers have announced routing changes affecting 16 services since early July, and the traffic has become more balanced by direction: northbound capacity was equal to 75% of southbound in the third quarter and 81% in early October. Niels Rasmussen, BIMCO’s chief shipping analyst, estimates that the diversions added about 10% to global container ship capacity demand, and that the addition is now unwinding quickly.

What is not established is why. No carrier has published a security assessment justifying the acceleration, and the canal is still handling only about half its pre-crisis container capacity, so the market is looking at a partial normalisation rather than a return to 2023 routings. The practical read for shippers is that the 2027 contracting round starts with more effective capacity in the system than the 2026 round did.

The security picture that carriers are pricing is not getting clearer. In its weekly report covering the seven days to 14 October, UKMTO recorded 12 attacks on vessels, 10 of them in the Strait of Hormuz, one in the Arabian Gulf and one in the Gulf of Oman, and said most struck vessels are not reporting incidents to it directly, so its totals may understate the true number. Six vessels continued their voyages or reached port, two were left not under command and three had unconfirmed outcomes. The Singapore-flagged GFS Pride, a 2,824 TEU feeder, was lost after a projectile strike, with Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority reporting all 21 crew evacuated safely, while the GFS Giselle reached anchorage with hull damage and 22 crew safe. UKMTO counted 254 transits in the same week, 129 inbound and 125 outbound, down from 275 the week before and about 70% below pre-conflict levels; only 42 were observed through AIS data, with the remaining 212 drawn from US-reported facilitated transits that UKMTO says cannot currently be independently verified. US Central Command put traffic at about 400 merchant ships over a seven day period, without specifying the dates covered, and Iran continues to say the strait is closed. Fuel adds a cost channel: the IEA said it would accelerate the release of about 100 million barrels of emergency stocks, including more than 20 million barrels of diesel, and warned the diesel shortage could persist into 2027, with Middle East refined product exports at 1.9 million barrels a day in September against 4.7 million before the war. Bunker and inland diesel costs feed directly into the surcharges that sit on top of container freight rates.

Freight Rates

Xeneta’s market average spot rates for 16 October put the US trades flat over the past month and the transatlantic lowest of the five lanes it published. Far East to the US West Coast stood at US$8,296 per FEU and Far East to the US East Coast at US$11,495 per FEU, levels Xeneta describes as almost flat for the past month and still up triple-digit percentages on pre-Hormuz February. Far East to North Europe was US$3,568 per FEU and Far East to the Mediterranean US$4,165 per FEU, up 2.5% and 3.2% respectively on the week, while North Europe to US East Coast was US$2,946 per FEU.

Provider	Trade lane	Unit	Period	Level	Change
Xeneta market average	Far East to US West Coast	per FEU (40ft)	16 Oct 2026	US$8,296	Not published, flat over the past month
Xeneta market average	Far East to US East Coast	per FEU (40ft)	16 Oct 2026	US$11,495	Not published, flat over the past month
Xeneta market average	Far East to North Europe	per FEU (40ft)	16 Oct 2026	US$3,568	+2.5% week on week
Xeneta market average	Far East to Mediterranean	per FEU (40ft)	16 Oct 2026	US$4,165	+3.2% week on week
Xeneta market average	North Europe to US East Coast	per FEU (40ft)	16 Oct 2026	US$2,946	Not published

These are Xeneta’s own averages and should not be read against Drewry’s World Container Index, whose 15 October assessment was covered in Thursday’s briefing. The two providers sample different port pairs and different periods, which is the point our explainer on container freight rate indexes makes.

Carriers are responding to soft US demand by removing capacity rather than adding it. Xeneta counted 58,200 TEU blanked this week on Far East to US West Coast and 35,500 TEU on Far East to US East Coast. Stausbøll reads that as carriers protecting current levels rather than expecting growth, since rates still up triple-digit percentages on February levels would normally justify extra sailings. On Asia-Europe, The Loadstar reported that forwarders expect the freight all kinds increases due on 19 October to be short lived. The published levels are US$4,200 per 40ft to North Europe and US$4,600 to the Mediterranean from Hapag-Lloyd, US$4,600 and US$4,700 from CMA CGM, and US$4,500 to both North and South Europe from MSC, with MSC and CMA CGM limiting validity to 31 October. One European forwarder told the Loadstar that downward revisions had already arrived, almost back to early-October levels, and said demand shows no noticeable increase. A blank sailing is a departure a carrier removes from a trade, as our explainer on blank sailings sets out.

Reliability is the other constraint. Jon Charles of WiseTech put Asia-Europe on-time arrivals at 9.9% in September, with delays of eight days or more accounting for almost half of volume, according to the Loadstar. That is a schedule performance figure from a software vendor rather than a carrier filing, but it is consistent with the network picture in our guide to schedule reliability.

Carrier Updates

MSC will blank its Asia-North Europe Britannia service in weeks 45 and 46, citing ongoing market challenges, the Loadstar reported. CMA CGM removed the northbound Salerno call from its North Europe to East Mediterranean FEMEX1 service, which it operates with seven ships averaging about 5,000 TEU, leaving Malta, Piraeus, Istanbul, Izmit, Gemlik, Aliaga and Algeciras on the rotation. In intra-Asia, CU Lines withdrew from its slot charter on CNC Line’s Japan to Thailand Express, and CNC, CMA CGM’s intra-Asia subsidiary, continues to operate the loop.

Ports

The Journal of Commerce reported that congestion eased at key Asian ports as holiday-related cargo volumes fell, while forwarders still flag terminal level hotspots, including berthing delays at Shanghai. The article body sits behind a paywall, so the port level detail beyond that summary could not be checked here.

In Morocco, West Med Container Terminal is preparing to start commercial operations at Nador West Med after operational trials. The terminal is a joint venture between Marsa Maroc, with 50% plus one share, and Terminal Investment Limited, MSC’s terminal arm, with 50% minus one share. It has two berths on a 750 metre quay and annual handling capacity of 1.2 million TEU, and MSC’s Mediterranean to US East Coast EMUSA service is expected to be its first regular customer, calling at Nador before New York, according to DynaLiners, as reported by Container News.

Fleet & Capacity

CSSC (Tianjin) Shipbuilding delivered the CMA CGM Lorenzaccio on 15 October, a methanol dual-fuel ship of 16,136 TEU design capacity and about 360 metres in length, 16 days ahead of its contractual date and the fifth methanol dual-fuel boxship the yard has handed over this year. Deliveries of this kind add to the nominal fleet regardless of where the ships trade, which is why the distinction between nominal, deployed and effective capacity matters when reading headline orderbook figures.

Regulation & Policy

Three senior House Republicans asked the Department of Homeland Security to revoke COSCO’s access to the Coast Guard’s Qualship 21 programme, which reduces routine port state control inspections for foreign-flagged vessels with strong compliance records. In a 14 October letter to Secretary Markwayne Mullin, John Moolenaar of the Select Committee on China, Rick Crawford of the Intelligence Committee and Carlos Gimenez, who chairs the Homeland Security subcommittee on transportation and maritime security, said at least 10 COSCO vessels were enrolled as of 15 July despite the company’s Pentagon designation as a Chinese military company. An accompanying Coast Guard table identifies 11 vessels, including COSCO DEVELOPMENT, COSCO PRIDE and COSCO VIETNAM. The letter follows a 1 September Reuters investigation quoting administration officials, which COSCO rejected in September, saying its equipment serves navigation, communications and emergency response. A Coast Guard spokesperson told gCaptain that the Commandant ordered an immediate review of the vessels’ participation on 15 October. Qualship 21 does not exempt vessels from security inspections, and the letter does not itself change any vessel’s status; the Department of Homeland Security has announced no action.

The Federal Maritime Commission, meanwhile, proposed a US$200,000 fee each time a Spanish-flagged vessel enters a US port from abroad, plus possible restrictions on five categories of Spanish imports worth about US$3.1 billion in 2025, including US$837 million of olive oil. The proposal, published in the Federal Register on 15 October with a 60 day comment period, follows a finding that Spain’s refusal since November 2024 to admit the US-flagged Maersk Denver, Maersk Seletar and later Maersk Hartford had pushed US-flagged calls to Tangier. The measures are not final, and the Commission has offered Spain a hearing.

What It Means

For shippers, the Red Sea return is now the dominant capacity variable rather than a background risk. If BIMCO’s estimate is right that diversions added about 10% to capacity demand, then each tranche of capacity that moves back through Suez lowers the effective tightness of the fleet, which is why Asia-Europe spot rate increases are being announced with short validity dates and why forwarders already report downward revisions. Carriers on the transpacific are doing the opposite, holding rates by blanking sailings into a soft post-Golden Week market.

Contracting teams should treat the 19 October FAK levels as opening positions, not outcomes, and should expect service reliability, not space, to be the binding constraint on Asia-Europe commitments. On the US side, the COSCO inspection review and the Spanish-flagged vessel fee proposal both add compliance and routing risk without changing any rule yet, so booking decisions can wait for the Federal Register comment period and the Coast Guard review, but cargo interests tied to affected flags and operators should be tracking both.

Sources

• Xeneta, weekly ocean container shipping market update, 16 October 2026
• Container News, “Suez Canal container ship transits exceed half of pre-crisis levels”, citing BIMCO and Clarksons Research
• The Loadstar, “Asia-Europe spot rates on the rise ahead of new FAK hikes”, 16 October 2026
• gCaptain, “Fog of War Deepens in Hormuz as UKMTO Says Most Ship Attacks Go Unreported”, 16 October 2026
• gCaptain, “Lawmakers Seek to Strip COSCO Ships of U.S. Port Inspection Privileges Over Espionage Claims”, 16 October 2026
• Journal of Commerce, “House committees urge Coast Guard to increase Cosco ship inspections”
• gCaptain, “U.S. Shipping Regulator Proposes $200,000 Fees on Spanish Ships Over Port Ban”, 14 October 2026
• gCaptain, “IEA Moves to Accelerate Oil Reserve Releases as Hormuz Crisis Drags On”, 16 October 2026
• Journal of Commerce, “Congestion eases at key Asian ports on holiday-related cargo reduction”
• Container News, “MSC-backed Nador terminal set to begin operations”, citing DynaLiners
• Container News, “CMA CGM removes Salerno from FEMEX1 service”
• Container News, “CU Lines exits CNC’s Japan-Thailand service”
• iMarine, “CSSC (Tianjin) Shipbuilding Delivers Fifth Methanol Dual-Fuel Container Ship to CMA CGM This Year”, 16 October 2026