{"id":834,"date":"2026-09-26T11:36:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/maersk-puts-67-ships-through-suez-in-september-as-cma-cgm-reports-60\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T11:36:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:36:30","slug":"maersk-puts-67-ships-through-suez-in-september-as-cma-cgm-reports-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/maersk-puts-67-ships-through-suez-in-september-as-cma-cgm-reports-60\/","title":{"rendered":"Maersk puts 67 ships through Suez in September as CMA CGM reports 60"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hany El Nady, A.P. Moller-Maersk\u2019s Middle East and North Africa representative, told a Suez Canal Authority meeting in Ismailia on Tuesday, 23 September, that Maersk\u2019s canal transits had risen from eight in September 2025 to 67 in September 2026, and that the line expected yearly transits to reach 278 in the future. Tarek Zaghloul, CEO of CMA CGM Group in Egypt and Sudan, said the French line had kept using the canal since Red Sea tensions began and that 60 of its vessels had passed in September. The Authority published those figures the same day. Container News, the Egyptian Gazette, Ahram Online and Tradlinx carried them through 24\u201325 September. That meeting is the primary for this note. It is not a rewrite of the 15 September Regulas article on Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd putting four more Gemini services through Suez, the 16 September MSC Indusa westbound-only restore, or the 17 September southbound transit of OOCL Portugal.<\/p>\n

Admiral Ossama Rabiee, the Authority\u2019s chairman, told representatives of 20 major shipping lines and agencies that readiness across the canal\u2019s operational system had been raised, that the canal was safe, that navigation was proceeding smoothly, and that flexible pricing and client communication had brought a significant number of services back. He said the Crisis Management Center was watching regional developments around the clock through the Planning Department\u2019s Economic Research Unit. Those are Authority statements about its own waterway. They are not a UKMTO, MSCIO or JMIC product for Bab el-Mandeb, and they do not move the Houthi hold on Mocha, Mayyun and the Hanish islands, or Saree\u2019s \u201csafe except Saudi\u201d rule, off the passage plan. September counts were given before the month ended. El Nady did not give a date for the 278-a-year figure.<\/p>\n

The rest of the room was directional, not a sailing order. Ashraf Sami, Yang Ming\u2019s general manager of branches, said the line was seriously considering a return in the near future. Abd El-Aziz Nabil of Inchcape said OOCL intended to return and expected an experimental transit in October. Hany El-Sallamy of COSCO said the group was considering more voyages after an affiliated container ship had transited a few days earlier \u2014 OOCL Portugal on 16 September, already covered here \u2014 and that three additional affiliated ships were scheduled. Mohamed El-Alfy of Gulf Agency Company said the period was seeing \u201cpositive reactions\u201d as services returned. ONE and Evergreen were in the room. They did not put a September count on the table. Yang Ming had not issued a customer advisory confirming own-string routing when Tradlinx wrote on 25 September. Treat the Authority\u2019s account of that sentence as an Authority account, not as a Premier Alliance schedule change.<\/p>\n

A busier canal is not a restored network<\/h2>\n

The canal-wide tape behind the carrier counts is recovery without a return to the old baseline. The Authority counted 1,358 vessel transits in August, up 27 percent from 1,070 a year earlier. Net tonnage rose 51.1 percent to 68.3 million tons. Canal revenue reached $567.1 million, from $326 million a year earlier. Those totals cover every vessel type. FreightWaves has put the pre-crisis container baseline at roughly 80 transits a week, down to about 26 a week by mid-January 2026. Drewry\u2019s weekly container count, as reported by TrasportoEuropa from the 24 September World Container Index commentary, rose from 41 transits in week 37 to 48 in week 38. Read together, the figures show a climb toward pre-crisis box volume that has not reached it. Tonnage growing faster than the vessel count is a larger-ship mix, not a cleared southern Red Sea.<\/p>\n

Maersk has already described its own moves as partial. The 14 September Gemini decision to put AE5, AE11, AE12 and ME2 (Hapag-Lloyd NE4, SE2, SE1 and IEX) back through Suez, joining AE15 and AE19, was framed as a measured step that did not restore the full East-West network. MSC\u2019s 15 September Indusa restore was westbound-only, with eastbound remaining on the Cape, case by case. OOCL Portugal\u2019s 16 September southbound transit was COSCO\u2019s first such Suez move since the latest Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb tightening, not a Cosco Shipping Lines network flip. Wednesday\u2019s 67 and 60 are September throughput numbers for two lines that had already started coming back. They are not a Gemini restatement, and they are not evidence that every Maersk or CMA CGM string now uses the canal.<\/p>\n

Spot rates have moved with the extra canal capacity, first on the Mediterranean. Freightos figures reported by FreightWaves on 24 September put Asia\u2013Mediterranean at about $3,900 per FEU, down 7 percent on the week and back toward May levels from a July peak above $7,000, and Asia\u2013North Europe at about $3,700 per FEU, down 15 percent on the week from nearly $6,000, still about $1,000 above late-May levels. Freightos attributed the sharper Mediterranean retreat to a larger gain in effective capacity as ships resume Red Sea transits. North Europe is still absorbing hub congestion and inland disruption, including low Rhine water. A faster sea leg into a tight hub is an operations problem, not a freight-market celebration. Drewry counted seven Asia\u2013Europe blank sailings announced for the Golden Week week beginning 1 October, up from three the week before. A rolled box can change both the ship and the routing inside one planning window.<\/p>\n

The southern entrance is still a security product<\/h2>\n

The operational implication is that arrival plans written on a Cape baseline will now miss more ships, and that security plans written on a Suez baseline will still miss the water between Suez and the Gulf of Aden. A Cape-to-Suez switch can move Asia\u2013Europe discharge dates by around two weeks, depending on service and speed. That is a planning range, not a schedule. The master who draws Suez still has to price Bab el-Mandeb. Houthi media\u2019s 408-crossing claim for 11\u201321 September, covered on 24 September, remains unverified against Kpler\u2019s much lower commodity counts. Italy\u2019s national-escort planning and Kaja Kallas\u2019s ask for more than ten Aspides hulls against about six operating are protection-rationing files, not a corridor. War-risk for Saudi-linked Yanbu callers, covered on 25 September, is a different product again. None of Wednesday\u2019s transit counts changes those files.<\/p>\n

Surcharges make the same point in the freight desk. MSC on 3 September told customers that, from the 15 September pro-forma date, Asia cargo to a list of East Mediterranean and Black Sea ports would take a $55 per TEU Piracy Risk Surcharge and a $36 per TEU Suez Canal Surcharge until further notice \u2014 $91 per TEU combined on the named ports, not a flat $91 on every box. ChemOrbis, wrapping the Suez recovery on 24 September, used those charges as the reason a shorter route is not a cheaper or simpler route for T\u00fcrkiye-bound cargo. That surcharge file is context here, not a dedicated rewrite. It is enough to stop anyone briefing Wednesday\u2019s 67 and 60 as a return to 2023 cost.<\/p>\n

Rabiee\u2019s \u201ccanal is safe\u201d sentence is about the waterway between Port Said and Suez. It is not a statement about Mocha, Mayyun, the Hanish islands, or a Saudi-linked tanker that still cannot use Bab el-Mandeb. Operators who put a Gemini, CMA CGM or experimental OOCL ship through the canal in October still need BMP, citadel, AIS discipline and a war-risk notice for the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden legs. They also need a booking process that records, for each container, whether the ocean leg is Suez or Cape, because the 23 September room mixed restored strings, westbound-only restores, an October trial and a Yang Ming sentence that is not yet a customer advisory. A weekly snapshot will go stale. The three additional COSCO-affiliated transits El-Sallamy scheduled are a near-term check. Yang Ming\u2019s own-string advisory, if it comes, is another. Until then, Premier Alliance cargo that is not on an MSC Tiger slot should still be planned as Cape unless the booking says otherwise.<\/p>\n

What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n