CMA CGM plans to increase Suez Canal transits
Container News · Aug 20, 2026
CMA CGM has reaffirmed plans to increase vessel transits through the Suez Canal, as the French shipping group continues to expand its use of the route. Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Chairman Admiral Ossama Rabiee discussed the group’s future sailing plans with Christine Cabau, CMA CGM Executive Vice President for Assets and Operations. Tariq Zaghloul, CMA […]
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What this moves
Context or analysis — nothing has stopped moving.
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The corridor
Suez Canal
Global chokepointEgypt / Red SeaThe Asia–Europe short cut. When it is working, it removes roughly ten days and thousands of miles from the alternative around Africa; when it is not, that distance comes straight back and quietly eats a chunk of the world's usable container capacity.
- Diverting Asia–North Europe services around the Cape of Good Hope adds roughly 3,000–4,000 nautical miles and, in practice, ten days or more each way.
- Those extra days absorb ships without a single vessel leaving the fleet. Effective capacity falls even though nominal capacity is unchanged — the same tightening a large blank-sailing programme produces.
- Longer round trips strand empty containers at the wrong end of the trade, so equipment shortages surface in Asia weeks after the routing change.
- Rerouted services arrive in bunched waves rather than an even cadence, which converts a routing problem into a berth-congestion problem at European and Mediterranean ports.
- Cape of Good Hope — available, reliable, and roughly ten days slower each way on the Asia–Europe leg.
- Asia–Europe rail and air for a small, time-critical share of the volume, at multiples of the ocean cost.
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