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ContainerSignal Daily: Maersk targets full Suez return by March 2027

By ContainerSignal Editorial · · 14 min read

Maersk expects all of its services to be transiting the Suez Canal again by March 2027, according to the Suez Canal Authority, the most specific timetable yet from a top-two carrier for leaving the Cape of Good Hope routing behind. The expectation came in a video meeting between SCA chairman Adm. Ossama Rabiee and Maersk executives including chief operating officer Rabab Boulos, and the authority did not publish a service-by-service schedule. In the same week Drewry put a number on what the shift means: about 1.6 million TEU of effective capacity released in 2027 as diversions unwind, on top of roughly 1.3 million TEU from newbuilding deliveries.

Today’s Signals

Trade Routes

Maersk’s canal transits are already running well ahead of last year. The SCA reported 276 Maersk-affiliated vessel transits between January and September 2026, against 146 in the same period of 2025, an increase of about 89%, with combined net tonnage of 23.3 million tons against 7 million tons a year earlier, Container News reported. Maersk’s vice president of operations, Ahmed Hassan, said the carrier continues to update its sailing schedules, which should allow more services to use the canal in the coming months. Rabiee pointed to the canal’s cost advantage over the Cape route for large container ships. The March 2027 date is an expectation expressed by Maersk to the authority, not a confirmed schedule, and the SCA did not say which services return next.

Hapag-Lloyd is on the same path, without dates. At a meeting with Rabiee on 21 October, Hapag-Lloyd’s regional head for southern Europe, Juan Pablo Richards, said two of the line’s Asia-Europe services are already transiting Suez and that further services are expected to return, the SCA’s account of the meeting, reported by Container News, named neither the services nor a timetable. Richards said the carrier is monitoring Red Sea safety conditions before adjusting schedules.

The Premier Alliance has begun moving too. ONE, HMM and Yang Ming will switch the Southeast Asia to North Europe FE1 service back to Suez from October, with the 8,110 TEU ONE Continuity scheduled to depart Laem Chabang on 17 October as the first sailing, Linerlytica’s assessment reported by Splash. That is the alliance’s first departure from the Cape routing it adopted in January 2024. Transit time is the commercial prize: shorter voyages cut inventory in transit and improve the odds of keeping weekly services on schedule, which is what shippers price when they choose a carrier on these lanes.

Aggregate traffic tells the same story at a lower level. BIMCO, citing Clarksons Research, put average container capacity through the canal at 753,000 TEU a week in the first two weeks of October 2026, against 1.46 million TEU in the same period of 2023, Container News reported. The canal carried 36% of container capacity moving on either the Suez or Cape routing, up from an average of 8% between 2024 and mid 2026 and still short of the 80% seen before the Red Sea attacks. Lines have announced routing changes on 16 services since early July, and northbound capacity reached 81% of southbound capacity in early October. MSI estimates around 35% of Asia-Europe sailings now use the Red Sea, while Linerlytica counts more than 140 containerships of over 2 million TEU back on Suez routings since May.

Freight Rates

Spot rates are still rising while the extra capacity returns. Drewry’s World Container Index for the week to 22 October rose 2% to US$4,585 per 40ft container, a second consecutive weekly gain and the highest level in 15 weeks, the assessor said. Drewry expects Asia-Europe rates to rise slightly again next week on tight capacity and transpacific rates to hold, with US import demand supporting the latter. The same commentary recorded 55 Suez Canal sailings in Week 42 against 54 in Week 41, and only two containerships entering the Persian Gulf, down from five the previous week.

The capacity that mattered most last week was on the quay, not the water. Vessel waiting times at Shanghai fell from 97 hours in Week 38 to 38 hours in Week 42, Drewry reported, a substantial improvement in port operations that releases effective capacity without any change in the fleet. That is the mechanism behind the divergence between spot and contract: congestion easing adds supply at the same time as Suez returns do, and Drewry recorded a modest decline in average east-west contract rates between August and September, the first reversal after three consecutive monthly increases. It expects contract rates to fall further in 2027.

Ports

HHLA cut its full-year earnings forecast on Hamburg throughput. The operator now expects group EBIT of €115 million to €135 million for 2026, down from €150 million to €170 million, and Port Logistics EBIT of €100 million to €120 million against a previous €135 million to €155 million, Container News reported. HHLA attributed the revision to strike-related disruption, the ramp-up of terminal automation in Hamburg and a non-cash impairment of about €12 million in its Logistics segment. It now expects a significant year-on-year decline in container throughput, having previously guided to a slight decrease, while leaving revenue and container transport guidance unchanged. The warning matters beyond one company: it is the first hard financial evidence that this year’s European port disruption cost throughput, not just time.

A CMA CGM ship struck a crane at Livorno. The 272 metre, 8,048 TEU CMA CGM Pointe Noire hit a ship-to-shore crane that was standing on the quay for maintenance while approaching its berth at Terminal Darsena Toscana on 21 October, WorldCargo News reported. The vessel’s superstructure struck the crane boom, knocking it off its rails. No injuries were reported, damage to the ship was initially assessed as minor, and the vessel was detained for inspection. The crane is one of six at the terminal, and local media reported only two were immediately available afterwards. TDT has annual operating capacity of about 900,000 TEU and handled 450,281 TEU in 2025, up 18.1% from 381,198 TEU in 2024.

The Panama Canal restored last-minute slots for panamax locks. The authority resumed short-notice transit reservations on 21 October, to be offered at its discretion depending on operational capacity, Splash reported. The canal closed its 2026 financial year with 13,951 transits in the 12 months to 30 September, up 4.1% from 13,404, and 521 million PC/UMS tons, up 6.5% from 489.2 million, the authority said. Neopanamax locks carried 52.2% of tonnage, up 8.2% year on year. Daily booking capacity stands at 33 vessels after a neopanamax slot was restored on 15 October, and the canal is extending its long-term slot allocation to panamax ships for the first time for the January to April 2027 period, with 288 panamax and 270 neopanamax slots allocated competitively in November. The authority repeated that the watershed still faces a water deficit.

An MSC ship was holed at Bremerhaven in a collision with a cruise vessel. The 16,520 TEU MSC Victorine, built in 2023 and Liberian flagged, suffered a roughly 10 metre tear of its hull above the waterline when the 99,526 gt Mein Schiff 3 struck its stern during a departure manoeuvre on the evening of 25 October in strong winds, Splash reported. Bremen port authorities confirmed there was no water ingress and no injuries were reported. Bremen police said the cruise ship struck two containerships while TUI Cruises maintained only one was involved, and the role of the nearby MSC Anne F is not established. The exact cause and the full extent of the damage are under investigation, and the MSC Victorine remained at Bremerhaven instead of proceeding to Hamburg.

Fleet & Capacity

Drewry now expects overcapacity in 2027 and 2028 to be unavoidable. In its Container Forecaster presentation on 26 October, the consultancy projected global container throughput growth of 3.1% in 2026 and 6.2% in 2027, but put the fleet at about 34 million TEU with a 15.5 million TEU orderbook, equal to around 45% of existing capacity and the highest ratio since 2009, as reported by Breakbulk.News. It expects net fleet growth of almost 9% in 2027, about 12.1% in 2028 and 10% in 2029, with monthly deliveries averaging roughly 130,000 TEU now and set to double next year. September alone brought orders for 82 containerships of about 1.1 million TEU.

The Suez release is quantified in the same forecast. Drewry estimates that the end of Red Sea diversions releases about 1.6 million TEU of effective capacity in 2027, alongside roughly 1.3 million TEU from deliveries, and that canal traffic recovers to about 80% of its pre-diversion level by February 2027. Its capacity discipline read is already softening: about 70 blank sailings are projected across the major east-west trades in October, falling to 50 in November, yet effective capacity still rises 5% month on month. That combination is what how blank sailings work describes as the limit of the instrument: withdrawing voyages can support a published rate for a few weeks, but it cannot offset a structural addition to the fleet.

Regulation & Policy

Shanghai formalised seven more container freight benchmarks. The Shanghai Shipping Exchange introduced the additional SCFI components at the North Bund International Shipping Forum on 20 October, Splash reported. Three track 20ft rates from Shanghai to East Africa, Central and South America, and India and Pakistan, and four track 40ft rates to Europe, the Mediterranean, South America, and Central and South America. The East Africa and Central and South America 20ft indices began trial publication in January 2025 and the remaining five in May 2026, so October marks formal release rather than the first collection of data. The exchange also published a revised index-linked container service contract template that widens the range of container sizes and indices that can be used to calculate payments, extending a framework first issued in 2023. For contract negotiations, the practical effect is a larger set of published reference points, a distinction that the guide to container freight rate indexes sets out for the WCI, FBX and SCFI families.

What It Means

The Suez return has moved from a trickle of service announcements to a timetable, and the timetable is now the capacity story. Maersk’s March 2027 expectation, Drewry’s February 2027 estimate for 80% of pre-diversion traffic, and the 16 service changes since July all point the same way: the extra vessel-days that the Cape routing absorbed are coming back into the market within about two quarters. Add roughly 1.3 million TEU of 2027 deliveries and the orderbook at 45% of the fleet, and the arithmetic does not work at Drewry’s 6.2% demand growth for 2027.

For shippers the trade is straightforward and mostly favourable. Shorter Asia-Europe voyages mean faster transit, less inventory in transit and better schedule integrity, and the congestion data already shows Shanghai waiting times down to 38 hours from 97. What shippers lose is the rate support that diversion capacity provided. The spot indexes are still rising, but contract rates turned down between August and September and Drewry expects them to keep falling into 2027, which changes the calculus on when to fix and when to float. The spread between spot and contract on Asia-Europe has been unusually wide all year, and the carriers’ November FAK levels are a test of whether that spread can be closed from the top.

For carriers the risk is concentrated in the lanes where the transpacific premium still depends on capacity withdrawn elsewhere. The transatlantic has held above US$3,000 per 40ft for months and the transpacific is being supported by US import demand, but both are exposed once the fleet is fully deployed at shorter distances. The cushion is congestion: Linerlytica estimates 3.76 million TEU, or 10.9% of the global fleet, is tied up by port and terminal delays, against Sea-Intelligence’s estimate of above 8%, and Sea-Intelligence puts full unwinding at seven to 10 months. If that cushion deflates at the same time as Suez capacity returns, the 2027 oversupply arrives faster than the delivery schedule alone implies. The pricing question is the one the transpacific premium analysis framed earlier this month: how much of the current spread is a capacity decision rather than a demand signal.

Two operational details are worth watching into November. HHLA’s downgrade shows that European terminal disruption has a measurable earnings cost even when revenue holds, which raises the odds of further automation investment and of labour friction around it. And the Bremerhaven collision, minor in trade terms, is a reminder that berth manoeuvres in strong weather remain a real source of hull and crane damage at northern European terminals, where a single lost crane reduces handling capacity by a measurable share.

Sources

Background reading

The explainers behind today's stories, if you want the fundamentals first.

Asia-Europe rates are riding a half-finished Suez return

Sixty-three percent of Far East to Europe capacity now uses Red Sea routings, but many loops still return via the Cape. That gap explains the rate rebound.

The transpacific premium is mostly a capacity decision

Asia-US East Coast spot rates are more than three times Asia-North Europe. The gap reflects blanked capacity and Red Sea routing more than a demand boom.

Asia-Europe and transpacific rates rise as capacity sets records

Spot rates gained on both main headhauls in the week to 23 October, led by Asia-Europe, even as Sea-Intelligence recorded record deployed capacity.

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