Suez container traffic passes half of pre-disruption volume for the first time since 2023
Clarksons data relayed by BIMCO show weekly transiting capacity at 753,000 TEU in early October. Carriers are returning to the canal while the war that emptied it widens.
“During the first two weeks of October, weekly container ship capacity transiting the Suez Canal averaged 753k TEU, according to Clarksons Research, compared with 1,457k TEU during the same period in 2023,” said Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO. “Since the Houthi attacks began in the Red Sea, this is the first time that transits have exceeded 50% of pre-disruption levels.” The trough was severe: from early February 2024 to mid-2026, weekly capacity averaged 141,000 TEU, or 11% of the equivalent 2023 weeks. On the routing split, BIMCO puts 36% of container capacity moving via either Suez or the Cape of Good Hope through the canal in early October, against an 8% average from 2024 to mid-2026 and roughly 80% before the attacks. Northbound capacity ran at 75% of southbound in the third quarter, rising to 81% in early October. BIMCO counts sixteen services announcing Suez returns since early July.
The return is running ahead of the analysts' own risk models. Linerlytica counts more than fifty vessels of 4,000 TEU and above transiting the Red Sea weekly and expects “a full-scale return to the Suez route” by the first quarter of 2027, naming ONE and HMM as the next carriers to switch and leaving Evergreen, Yang Ming and Zim outside. Drewry’s head of container research, Simon Heaney, told The Loadstar on 12 October: “Drewry is not privy to carriers' internal risk assessments, but irrespective of our own reservations about the ongoing security risk, we cannot deny the evidence that lines are returning to Suez ahead of our projected timeline.” Seatrade Maritime reported on 14 October that lines are “running the Houthi gauntlet” with “some suggesting that lines have been given private assurances” — unattributed, and best treated as market talk rather than a finding.
Assessment: This is the most consequential number on the Egyptian balance sheet and the least controllable from Cairo. Canal revenue is recovering because container lines made a private bet on their own insurance arithmetic, not because the Red Sea became safe; the escalation drawing Egypt toward a Saudi mandate is the same escalation shipping is discounting. One dataset underlies every version of the story — Clarksons, via BIMCO — so treat the four trade outlets as one source, not four. The tell to watch is the directional gap: northbound at 81% of southbound means carriers are still hedging the loaded Asia–Europe leg. Full confidence would close that spread.