There is a high chance of Hapag-Lloyd’s ME11 Service will come back to the Suez-transit route after Maersk takes action to re-route its MECL Services. This is the bright future for shortening the route for the Middle East, India, and Mediterranean.
SeaTrade Maritime reports that after the official announcement of Maersk on re-routing its MECL Services, Hapag-Lloyd also plans to switch back to the Suez-transit route with a service that links ports in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent with the Mediterranean, ME11. Neither Maersk nor Hapag-Lloyd have refuted this idea, despite it not being formally confirmed.
Long-haul routes connecting the Middle East, India, and the Mediterranean are thinking about going back to Suez, which emphasizes the growing demand to maximize travel time and schedule dependability, particularly for trips that are significantly impacted by the requirement to go around the Cape of Good Hope.
The ME11 service, which is comparable to Maersk’s MECL service, makes stops in the ports of Jebel and Salalah in the Middle East, as well as Mundra and Jawaharlal Nehru on the west coast of India, before traveling around the Cape of Good Hope to Tangier, Valencia, and Port Said in the Mediterranean. With an average carrying capacity of roughly 16,000 TEU per ship, Gemini operates 12 ships on the ME11 route.
Due to the much longer distance compared to the alternate route via the Red Sea and Suez, routes connecting the Middle East and India to the Mediterranean are thought to be the most severely affected by the diversion via the Cape of Good Hope. Thus, when circumstances allow, analysts predict that these routes will probably return to Suez in the near future. Gemini would be able to call in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Jeddah if Red Sea and Suez transits were to resume. Currently, three shuttle services—JD1, JD2, and JD3—call at Tangier, Algeciras, Port Said Aqaba, and Jeddah.
Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd responded to Seatrade Maritime News by saying that they are still debating when it would be safe to restart operations on trans-Suez routes as part of their partnership. The goal of any network modifications will be to minimize consumer inconvenience while upholding the schedule dependability that is essential to Gemini Cooperation.
