Premier Alliance FE1 to Transit Suez Nov 9 with 8,100-TEU One Continuity

For logistics teams managing Asia-Europe supply chains, the revival of Suez transits would cut roughly 7 to 10 days from current Cape of Good Hope routings, but the word 'tentative' matters. Pro forma schedules show carriers are testing the corridor with selected vessels before committing service-wide.

Nearly two years after global container carriers largely abandoned the Suez Canal on Asia-Europe routes because of Red Sea security threats, revised pro forma schedules indicate a broad, if tentative, shift back toward the Egyptian waterway. The clearest signal comes from Premier Alliance: Japanese carrier Ocean Network Express (ONE) has published a schedule showing the 8,100 teu One Continuity departing Laem Chabang on 19 October 2026 after being reassigned to the alliance's FE1 Asia-North Europe service. The vessel is due to arrive at the Suez Canal on 9 November and at Rotterdam, its first European port call, on 19 November. The One Continuity had previously been deployed on ONE's Asia-South America east coast SX1 service, operated with Premier Alliance partners HMM and Yang Ming, so its reassignment reflects both a routing decision and a reallocation of scarce alliance tonnage.

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COSCO's OOCL Portugal completed the first southbound passage since the Red Sea crisis began on 16 September, according to the Suez Canal Authority.

Three other FE1 vessels — NYK Venus (9,000 teu), ONE Hamburg (8,200 teu), and NYK Orion (9,000 teu) — are also scheduled for Suez transits after departing Asia in November and December, indicating the service is expected to operate largely via Suez through the fourth quarter. The competing Ocean Alliance is moving in the same direction. Linerlytica reports that after nine eastbound voyages via the canal since mid-September, COSCO will make its first westbound transit in more than two years on 4 October, with the 24,200 teu OOCL Spain on the AEU1/LL1 service, known as NEU1 to Ocean Alliance customers and FAL5 to CMA CGM customers. COSCO's OOCL Portugal completed the first southbound passage since the Red Sea crisis began on 16 September, according to the Suez Canal Authority. Linerlytica also noted that the last week of September marked the busiest week for containership transits through the canal since 2024, with 30 ships over 4,000 teu recorded.

These movements mark a significant inflection point. Since late 2023, carriers rerouted Asia-Europe services around the Cape of Good Hope after attacks targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea made the canal effectively impassable for most container lines. The Cape route adds roughly 7 to 10 days and several thousand nautical miles to a typical Asia-North Europe voyage, forcing carriers to absorb higher fuel, charter and operating costs while injecting additional capacity into the market to maintain weekly schedules. The return to Suez—even on a subset of strings—would therefore release effective capacity and shorten lead times, but it also reintroduces risk concentration around a single chokepoint.