Port Gridlock Triggers Unexpected Shift Back to Suez Canal Shipping

Asia-Europe container freight rates are falling as port congestion in Asia pushes carriers back toward the Suez Canal, according to Sogese's September Europe Container Market Update.

Drewry's Sept. 3 World Container Index  (WCI) put the Shanghai-Genoa rate at $4,368 per 40-foot container, down 10% week on week, while Shanghai-Rotterdam fell 5% to $4,092. Blank sailings on the Asia-Europe trade are set to drop from four to one next week, an early sign of capacity returning to the market.

The container market is fragmenting by trade corridor, and carriers are reallocating capacity accordingly.

“The container market is becoming increasingly fragmented by trade corridor, with freight rates, cargo demand and available capacity moving in different directions across major routes. Asia-Europe rates have started to soften from their mid-year highs while transpacific markets remain firmer, prompting carriers to adjust individual services and vessel deployments rather than manage capacity uniformly across their networks,” says Andrea Monti, CEO of Sogese S.r.l. “The selective return of services through the Suez Canal adds another variable: shorter voyages can increase effective capacity on Asia-Europe routes even without new ships entering the market. For shippers, this means that global fleet capacity is becoming a less reliable guide to the capacity available on a specific trade lane or through a particular port.”

Key takeaways:

·        The divergence between major trade corridors is beginning to show up directly in carrier network decisions. Rather than making broad capacity changes across their global networks, carriers are adjusting individual services, port rotations and vessel deployments in response to where cargo demand is holding up and where freight markets are beginning to soften.

·        Recent service changes illustrate how carriers are reallocating capacity service by service rather than across their networks as a whole.

·        For European shippers, the result is a less predictable service environment. A service may remain commercially viable while its port rotation, sailing frequency or transshipment arrangement changes around it. As carriers become more selective about where they deploy vessels, schedule structures could therefore become less predictable even if overall capacity remains available.

·        Asian port congestion has reached 4.3 million TEU, higher than the 4 million TEU stranded at the peak of the pandemic.

·        In the Western Ligurian port system covering Genoa, Savona and Vado Ligure, total container volumes fell 2.7% year on year in the first half of 2026 to around 1.45 million TEU, with gateway traffic up 1.6% and transshipment down 21.3%. First-quarter data shows a steeper national decline of 4.6%, with Trieste down 23.6%, Savona down 14.1% and Genoa down 4.9%, even as Italian exports grew 1.3% over the same period.

·        Data from the study show a gradual, congestion-driven return to Suez that releases effective capacity into the Asia-Europe market faster than carriers can absorb it through blank sailings alone. Italian transshipment volumes are likely to remain under pressure as long as Mediterranean routing decisions continue to favor ports with greater scale.

·        Freight rates soften progressively but remain above pre-crisis levels.

·        Suez services expand selectively without a full network-wide return.

·        Asia-Europe capacity increases gradually as vessel productivity improves.

·        Equipment availability improves across parts of Europe.

·        Carrier network adjustments remain more tactical than structural.

·        European shippers gain some improvement in transit options, but planning remains fluid.