Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, two of the world's largest container shipping lines, have announced they will resume sailings through the Suez Canal for at least one of their services. The move marks the first concrete step toward restoring the direct Asia-Europe routing that was largely abandoned after Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea began in late 2023, forcing carriers to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope and adding roughly 10-14 days to voyage times.
The Suez Canal route is central to global container trade — roughly 12-15% of global trade by volume historically transited the canal. When carriers abandoned it en masse, spot freight rates on Asia-Europe lanes surged dramatically, and shipping companies posted extraordinary earnings. Any normalization of Suez transits removes one of the key structural supports for elevated rates.
The bull case for shipping names is that this is a single, limited service resumption, not a full industry return — security conditions remain fragile and most major carriers have not yet committed to broad re-engagement. If Houthi activity flares again, carriers would quickly revert to Cape routing and rates would re-spike.
The bear case is that even a partial resumption signals to the market that the worst of the disruption may be behind us, which could accelerate a broader industry pivot back to Suez routing, collapsing the supply-side tightness that has underpinned freight rates and shipping earnings throughout 2024 and into 2025. Investors should watch whether other major carriers — CMA CGM, MSC, COSCO — follow suit, and whether spot rates on Asia-Europe lanes begin to soften materially in the coming weeks.