News / Another CMA CGM vessel heading for Suez Canal – 'to mitigate schedule delay'

Following the Suez Canal Authority’s decision to offer a 15% rebate on transit fees for containerships, the prospect of more box ships retuning to the Egyptian waterway has been increasing.

The carrier that continues most heavily inked with a return to Suez transits is French line CMA CGM, and new analysis by liner database eeSea suggests it could be preparing to explore more transits, particularly on backhaul Europe-Asia voyages.

According to eeSea operations manager John Kingori, vessel scheduling data indicates that the 16,000 teu CMA CGM Jules Verne is set to make a southbound Suez transit on 21 June.

The ship is one of 15 deployed on the Ocean Alliance’s Asia-Mediterranean MED2 service and recently passed the Cape of Good Hope en route to the Mediterranean.

It is due to call at Valencia on 4 June, followed by calls at Barcelona and Marseilles before arriving at CMA CGM’s central Mediterranean transhipment hub of Malta on 17 June.

It is then due to make an inducement call at the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah on 24 June, before heading to Port Klang.

“Our analysis at eeSea projects that, upon departure from Marsaxlokk, the vessel will have accumulated a 15-day delay,” Mr Kingoris said.

“By leveraging the shorter Suez Canal passage, this delay is projected to be reduced to approximately six days by the time the vessel calls at Port Klang, suggesting that the carrier might be leveraging the shorter transit to mitigate schedule delays,” he added.

According to eeSea data, the CMA CGM Jules Verne has already transited the Red Sea at least five times since the onset of the Houthi attacks in early 2024, on at least one occasion escorted by the French navy.

However, Mr Kingori said, the carrier also took further security measures, principally disengaging its AIS transponders and “going dark”.

“Analysis of sailing patterns reveals the vessel consistently utilises the Suez route exclusively for Asia-bound backhaul voyages, while maintaining Cape of Good Hope routing for westbound headhaul movements,” he said.

The liner database shows the Ocean Alliance’s Asia-Mediterranean MED5, named BEX2 by CMA CGM, is also routed through the Red Sea. As with the MED2 service, all the 12 vessels deployed on the string are operated by the French carrier.

“CMA CGM remains one of the major container shipping lines demonstrating the operational confidence to route vessels through the Suez corridor, with its BEX2 service consistently traversing this passage despite persistent security concerns,” Mr Kingori said.

“Similar to the CMA CGM Jules Verne, vessels deployed on the BEX2 service have also been going dark, suspending AIS transmissions during transit through the high-risk zone.”