Four Gemini services return to the Suez Canal: what changes for Ligurian ports

TUESDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2026

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd move AE5, AE11, AE12 and ME2 onto the shorter route while the Red Sea security picture hardens. Both things are true at once.

Four Gemini services are returning to the Suez Canal instead of routing around Africa, and one of them calls at La Spezia, Genoa and Vado Ligure. The decision comes as the situation in the Red Sea worsens: both are true at the same time, and it is worth holding them together.

The Gemini services returning to the Suez Canal

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, which operate together in the Gemini agreement, have announced the shift onto the Suez route of four Asia-Europe connections until now routed around the Cape of Good Hope.

• Services moving from the Cape of Good Hope to the Suez Canal: four, designated AE5, AE11, AE12 and ME2
• Gemini services on the Suez route in total after the shift: six, counting AE15 and AE19 already back
• First westbound sailing of AE11: 19 September from Tanjung Pelepas
• Italian ports called by AE11: La Spezia, Genoa and Vado Ligure
• Canal transits planned for each of the four services: two, outbound and return

AE11 links Asia and the Mediterranean with the rotation Shanghai, Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas, Suez Canal, Tanger Med, Valencia, Barcelona, La Spezia, Genoa, Vado Ligure, Suez Canal, Singapore. The opposite direction switches to the new route towards the end of September.

What it means for anyone importing from Asia

The Suez route is shorter than the one around Africa: at equal speed, transit time gets shorter. That is the fact.

From here on we are into interpretation, and it is worth saying so. A shorter transit does not automatically translate into a nearer delivery, for two reasons. The first is that during the switch from one route to the other, differently routed ships coexist for some weeks: two consecutive sailings of the same service can have very different timings. The second is that time gained at sea can be absorbed at the quay, and Ligurian ports are not immune to European congestion.

There is, though, a less visible effect worth knowing, because it concerns the market rather than the individual shipment. A longer route absorbs more ships to keep the same weekly frequency: stretching the loop means tying up capacity. Shortening it frees capacity. If the return to Suez holds, that capacity comes back to the market, and it is one of the factors weighing on freight rates.

There is then an explicit condition the carriers themselves have set: keeping the new routes depends on stability in the Red Sea area. It is not boilerplate. The same ships went back around the Cape of Good Hope once, and can do so again.

The context that should not be hidden

The shift comes at a time when Houthi militias have gained positions relevant to control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the compulsory passage towards the Red Sea.

Here we stop at the facts, because the rest is forecasting: two major carriers have decided operating conditions justify the return, and at the same time the security picture has hardened. Anyone reading only one of these two things forms a wrong idea. Anyone holding them together understands why the carriers accompanied the announcement with a caveat.

What to do now, concretely

The first step concerns shipments already booked. If you have cargo leaving Asia in the coming weeks, it is worth asking your forwarder which route that specific vessel is on, not the service in general: during the switch the difference lies in the individual sailing.

The second concerns the dates promised to the customer. Until the transition is complete, it is better to communicate windows rather than days, and to recalculate them when loading confirmation actually arrives.

The third concerns longer-term contracts. If you are negotiating rates for the coming months, the security caveat stated by the carriers is an element to put on the table: asking what happens to delivery times if the ships go back around Africa is a legitimate question, and the answer says a lot about the counterparty.

With La Merce, reading the return of the Gemini services to the Suez Canal means checking the routing of the individual vessel before promising a date, because among the sailings of these weeks the route changes from one to the next.

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