The Suez Route Is Returning. The Voyage Is Not Yet Normal.

By Hugo Federico Hernandez Varela The return of container services to the Suez Canal is becoming increasingly visible. What is less clear is when the underlying operation can genuinely be described as normal again. Operational normalisation is broader than a vessel transiting Suez: schedules, port rotations, cargo sequencing, equipment positioning and delivery expectations also have to settle around a stable baseline. On 16 September, the 24,188-TEU OOCL Portugal transited the Suez Canal while sailing from Belgium to China, marking COSCO Shipping Lines’ first southbound transit through the Canal since Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb tensions disrupted normal routing patterns. Other carriers are also restoring Suez routing, but not as a simple switch.