Cma CMA will be the first shipping company to resume the Red Sea route?
France's CMA CGM has denied it is preparing to resume regular routes through the Suez Canal.
After the Houthis announced that they had stopped attacking transit vessels in the Red Sea, AIS data appeared to confirm that a ship owned by CMA CGM was heading for the Suez Canal, and industry media said that CMA CGM would become the first liner company to resume regular flights to the Red Sea.
The ship, CMA CGM Columba, with a maximum container capacity of 114,00TEU, was deployed on the Europe-Middle East-India EPIC route and left the Spanish port of Algeciras over the weekend, bound for the northern port.
However, a spokesman for CMA CGM told Polaris that the ship will sail through the Suez Canal and call at the port of Jeddah, but this is a temporary call, and not all EPIC ships will transit the Red Sea. Cma CGM is closely monitoring developments in the region and the top priority remains the safety of seafarers, vessels and customer cargo.
Since the Red Sea crisis, ships on the EPIC route have had to circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope, not only increasing the route distance, but also increasing the fleet size deployed on the route to 13 ships. The port of Jeddah, which was originally called at on the eastbound voyage, has since been removed from the dock and is serviced by feeder ships from the UAE hub port.
Destine Ozuygur, head of operations at shipping consultancy eeSea, predicted that CMA CGM and COsco Shipping could be among the first to return to the Suez Canal, given the relative time available for Ocean Alliance's new route network, which launched in April, and previous attempts on non-alliance routes.
Sunny Worldwide Logistics has more than 20 years of freight forwarding history,and over half of staffs working in Sunny about 5-13years.Emergency solutions must be offered with 30 minutes if any. You may not find other companies like us in Shenzhen
