Limited exploration by top shipping companies to resume sailing, full recovery still far away
The current geopolitical risks in the Red Sea have not fundamentally eased, and the military attacks by the Houthi armed forces in Yemen on the Red Sea waterway are still ongoing. The threat to shipping safety in the Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden has long existed. In this context, mainstream shipping companies around the world have not fully restarted the Red Sea Suez Canal main route, and only a few shipping companies have selectively, tentatively, and small-scale resumed operations based on escort deployment and route attributes. The overall shipping market still maintains a cautious strategy.
Among shipping giants, Dafei Shipping is one of the earlier companies to promote the resumption of navigation in the Red Sea. With the support of the EU's maritime escort operation, it has gradually resumed the passage of some branch routes from India and Pakistan to the eastern United States, but only limited to non sensitive transport ships, avoiding high-risk associated transport capacity. The core Asia Europe trunk line still maintains the African Cape of Good Hope bypass plan and has not fully returned to the Suez route.
Since the outbreak of the Red Sea crisis, domestic shipping companies such as COSCO Shipping have always adopted a differentiated operation strategy, retaining short distance branch lines from the Middle East and India Pakistan through the Suez Canal for a long time to meet the urgent needs of regional trade. However, they strictly control navigable ships, fully insure against war risks, do not blindly increase mainline trips, and maintain a stable operating rhythm.
Maersk MSC、 Leading shipping companies such as Hapag Lloyd have a more conservative attitude, among which Hapag Lloyd has not yet launched any plans to resume the Red Sea mainline, and all Asia Europe and transoceanic routes continue to bypass the Cape of Good Hope; Maersk and MSC only conducted a very small number of non core voyages for water trials, and during the passage period, they took measures such as shutting down the ship's automatic identification system and implementing limited time fast navigation to avoid danger. The main container trunk transportation completely avoided high-risk areas in the Red Sea.
From actual navigation data, the current ship traffic volume in the Mandeb Strait and Suez Canal is only about 30% of pre crisis levels, and the overall navigation efficiency is low. The general consensus in the industry is that the current exploratory resumption of navigation belongs to the stage of flexible adjustment by enterprises. Due to factors such as uncertainty in geopolitical conflicts, high shipping insurance costs, and limited coverage of escort, it is difficult to achieve the normalization and comprehensive recovery of the Red Sea waterway in the short term. The pattern of parallel route detours and local navigation will continue for a long time.