Sea-Intelligence puts Red Sea routing at 27 percent, with the return running the wrong way

Sea-Intelligence’s Sunday Spotlight, Issue 782, put combined Asia–Europe Red Sea routing “normalisation” at 27 percent for September 2026, a figure picked up by trade press on or about 17 September. The estimate is built from the consultancy’s Trade Capacity Outlook database, which identifies named container vessels that have recently transited the Red Sea or are scheduled to. The directional split is the substance. Head-haul capacity from Asia to Europe held in a 13–25 percent band, essentially unchanged. Back-haul capacity from Europe to Asia moved from 18–26 percent in August to 25–47 percent in September. Mediterranean–Asia services were routing 57 percent of capacity through the Red Sea; North Europe–Asia services, 27 percent. Sea-Intelligence’s own explanation, as reported, is unromantic: carriers are repositioning tonnage toward Asia after congestion and delays at Asian hubs, and Mediterranean departures are prioritised because they offer the shortest return leg.

The carrier-level picture behind this was reported in late August by Splash247, and should be dated as such rather than read as new. MSC had officially restored Suez routings on four east–west services — Jade and Tiger on Asia–Mediterranean, Albatros on Asia–North Europe, Himalaya on India–Mediterranean. Linerlytica counted eleven Bab el-Mandeb transits by Maersk in both directions in a single week, and fifteen by CMA CGM. Maersk said more than 30 percent of its previously Cape-routed volumes had returned to Suez, a company claim not independently verified. The analyst Lars Jensen wrote on LinkedIn that “at this pace it might be reasonable to see a normalization by end-2026,” while cautioning in the same breath that some services may keep sailing around Africa deliberately, to soak up the surplus capacity that shorter voyages release. Round-Africa routing became the industry standard after the Red Sea crisis began in December 2023.

Assessment: Distrust the round number. Twenty-seven percent is a consultancy’s model of container capacity share, not transits and not receipts, and a back-haul surge driven by repositioning empty-ish tonnage toward congested Asian hubs is the kind of move that reverses in a month. Jensen’s caveat is the more durable insight: the Cape route is now partly a capacity-absorption mechanism, which means carriers have a commercial reason to return slowly even if the security picture allows speed. October’s sample settles whether September was a decision or a logistics accident. For Cairo, the distinction is fiscal — capacity share arriving before toll revenue does nothing for the external accounts.