Premier Alliance Returns Asia-North Europe Service to the Suez Canal

Premier Alliance, a container shipping alliance comprising ONE, HMM, and Yang Ming, intends to return its FE1 service between Asia and Northern Europe to the Suez Canal route, in a move expected to make October a month in which the majority of major shipping lines gradually return to the route.

The vessel 'ONE Continuity', with a capacity of 8,100 TEUs, will depart first on the service from Laem Chabang port on October 19, arriving at the Suez Canal on November 9, and then at its first European port, Rotterdam, on November 19, according to gCaptain platform. Other vessels, including 'NYK Venus', 'ONE Hamburg', and 'NYK Orion', are scheduled to transit the canal in November and December on the same service.

In the same context, the 24,200-TEU vessel 'OOCL Spain', owned by China's COSCO Group, was scheduled to execute its first westbound transit through the Suez Canal in over two years on October 4. The previous week was the busiest week for container ship transits through the canal since 2024, as 30 vessels, each with a capacity exceeding 4,000 TEUs, crossed it.

Data from Linerlytica showed that around 140 container ships carrying slightly over two million TEUs have structurally shifted to the Suez route since May. A report by the Financial Times attributes this shift partly to a message it said the Houthis sent to the European Union on September 10, pledging not to attack European commercial vessels.

What do these terms mean?

Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU): A unit of measurement for container ship capacity, equal to a 20-foot container. Service Line: A regular shipping route where the shipping company connects a set of ports on a fixed schedule. Westbound Transit: A vessel's voyage heading west through the canal. Bab al-Mandab: A strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea through which Suez ships pass.