Attacks by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militants on ships in the Red Sea are disrupting maritime trade and global shipping carriers start to reroute their vessels via the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Suez Canal.

Below are carriers that are considering or have decided to pause shipping via the Red Sea and the corresponding actions:

MSC

MSC ships will not transit the Suez Canal Eastbound and Westbound. Some services will be rerouted to go via the Cape of Good Hope instead.

YANG MING

For our vessels currently or potentially sailing through high-risk maritime area in the next two weeks, there will be an immediate diversion around the Cape of Good Hope, or waiting in a safe location.

WAN HAI

Will review reroute to go via the Cape of Good Hope case by case for vessels bound to USEC via Suez Canal. So far confirm that their Savannah Express E001 will go via Cape of Good Hope.

EVERGREEN

Temporary suspend Israel import and export service due to rising risk and safety considerations with immediate effect until further notice.

MAERSK

Stop passing through Bab al-Mandab Strait

CMA CGM

Reroute some of its vessels currently sailing to and from U.S., to and from North Europe and to and from Asia or Indian Subcontinent via the Cape of Good Hope.

OOCL

Stop cargo acceptance to and from Israel with immediate effect until further notice.

HAPAG-LLOYD

Reroute several ships via the Cape of Good Hope until the safety of passage through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea could be guaranteed.

HMM

Reroute several ships via the Cape of Good Hope.

Above rerouting plan via Cape of Good Hope will affect Asia to USEC services originally via Suez Canal and might increase the transit time 7-10 days or even longer. While delays haven’t reached peak disruption, the domino effect of ocean schedules, which rely on port calls on certain days of the week, will be upended, putting vessels out of place which will further hit equipment and capacity supply. Carriers may add more ships to make up the extra time or burn more fuel for the longer journey. It will increase their cost which may drive the rates to further increase. On the other hand, cargos might switch to USWC to avoid the possible delay to USEC which could make space become tighter.

As your trusted and strategic partner, we’ll monitor the situation closely and advise you once we have more clear information. If you have any question, please feel free to contact your sales representative. Thank you.